Summary: As veterans of CMS' Physician Group Practice Medicare three-year demonstration pilot, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) physicians are comfortable dispensing chronic care in the medical home environment, explains Dr. Barbara Walters, DHMC's senior medical director. Its new medical home partnership with Cigna is an enhanced version of CMS' reimbursement model that Dr. Walters hopes will generate some "working capital" to reinvest in key medical home tools. She describes DHMC's physician-friendly model of negotiating with commercial payors and its current method of communicating the patient-centered model of care to patients. Dr. Walters, along with Lesley Reeder, RN, BSN, quality improvement specialist for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, will examine case studies of reimbursement strategies for medical home programs during a September 24, 2008 webinar, Reimbursement Models for Medical Homes: From Pilot to Practice.
