Medical Homes seem to be the wave of the future. The number of Medical Homes has increased exponentially over the past years. They are a focus of government legislation including the Affordable Care Act. The ACT has several provisions pertaining specifically toward Medical Homes and the potential benefits they can provide including reducing healthcare costs. To promote the Medical Home concept, there are 4 organizations which can provide national accreditation for Medical Homes:
- URAC
- NCQA
- TJC
- AAAHC
CMS recently gave URAC the opportunity to provide input in the way of comments on ways to encourage more organizations to become advanced primary care practices. As such, the following recommendations were made:
- Accept recognitions of practices performed by URAC, NCQA, AAAHC, and TJC
- Offer significant financial incentives to those organizations who have become qualified as an advanced primary care practice.
- Offer incremental financial incentives to organizations who would like to become accredited but at a slower pace, perhaps over a 24-48 month cycle. Additional incentives would be given as milestones are reached up to the maximum which can be awarded for full accreditation/recognition .
- Establish a point in time in the future in which if primary care organizations haven’t become accredited Medical Homes, Medicare reimbursement would be reduced.
- Partner with other medical home initiatives to provide more accreditation choices including self-paced.
CMS specifically offered 2 options to increase the number of advanced primary care practices. URAC also had the opportunity to comment on these:
- Accreditation using nationally recognized organizations – URAC strongly backs this initiative as they have a vested interest
being only one of 4 organizations to offer national accreditation - CMS-developed advanced primary care accreditation criteria – URAC does not agree with this initiative. They feel that the criteria already developed for the CPC initiative is sufficient and align nicely with the standards set forth by each of the accreditation organizations.
About Us
BHM Healthcare Solutions is a healthcare management consulting company who has achieved URAC accreditation for our Medical Home services. We provide accreditation assistance through NCQA and TJC as well. URAC’s equivalent is called patient centered health care home accreditation or PCHCH accreditation. TJC’s accreditation is not a separate accreditation but an additional certification which can be attained as part of ambulatory accreditation. BHM has also received URAC PCHCH Auditors Certification. We can assist you with your medical home accreditation needs through any of these accrediting organizations. We have 100% success rate in assisting our clients with their accreditation attainment. If you would like to learn more about our services, please visit accreditation page or call 1-888-831-1171.
A slight coorection and amplification: the AAAHC (Accredtitation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, Inc. – not “AAAFC” as indicated above) provides accreditation for Medical Homes as a component part of an overall accreditation survey. We also offer an on-site certification program that looks specifically at the characteristics of the Medical Home.
Thank you. You are absolutely correct. I appreciate the constructive criticism.