Policy Levers Key for Primary Health Care Organizations to Support Primary Care Practices in Meeting Medical Home Expectations: Comparing Leading States to the Australian Experience

A new study looks at how leading states stack up to Australia on organizing primary care. Colorado, North Carolina, and Oregon have implemented regionally based Medicaid-funded primary health care organizations (PHCOs) as vehicles to strengthen their primary care foundations and improve the capacity of practices. Several countries with highly ranked delivery systems have implemented similar models. This study’s purpose was to determine if and how these kinds of organizations were working with primary care practices to improve their ability to provide comprehensive, coordinated, and accessible patient-centered care that met quality, safety, and efficiency outcomes—all core attributes of a medical home. The study found that the models implemented by the three states and the Commonwealth of Australia were all engaging practices to meet a number of medical home expectations, but the state models were more uniform in efforts to work with practices and focused on arranging services to meet the needs of complex patients.