Health Law Experiment Failed To Show Savings

A $57 million experiment to deliver better, more efficient care at federally funded health centers struggled to meet its goals and is unlikely to save money, says a new government report.

The test to coordinate treatment for high-risk Medicare patients in hundreds of communities was one of many demonstrations run by the Department of Health and Human Services’ innovation center.

The Affordable Care Act created the lab and gave it $10 billion over a decade to test new ways to improve care and save money.

As the trial wound down last fall, 69 percent of the clinics that hadn’t dropped out had obtained full accreditation as “medical homes” — primary care practices that coordinate care across the maze of specialists, hospitals and emergency rooms...

Health-reform specialists cautioned against counting the RAND report as a strike against medical homes.

“It would be a mistake to say we can conclude that the medical home model does not work,” said Dr. Marshall Chin, a professor at the University of Chicago medical school who reviewed drafts of the RAND study.

Indeed, the model was barely tested. Even among clinics that did qualify as medical homes, most weren’t certified until late in the program. Becoming a medical home, requiring patient-tracking software, referral protocols and lots of training, was more difficult and took longer than many expected.