Geisinger Patient-Centered Medical Home Cuts Care Costs by 9%

The debate over the true value of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) continues with a new study by Geisinger Health System, which indicates that the comprehensive care framework may be able to reduce the total costs of patient care by nearly ten percent over six years of operations.

The study, published in the journal Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, suggests that the patient-centered medical home may be able to provide benefits to non-elderly, commercially insured patients – a group that is not typically on the top of the list for intensive population health management programs.

“PCMH is a significant departure from the current standard care delivery model in the US, which relies on a ‘fragmented’ care delivery system that lacks a systematic infrastructure to comprehensively coordinate care across disparate specialty care providers and care settings,” explain Daniel Dukjae Maeng, Joann Sciandra, and Janet Tomcavage, three researchers from the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania.