Series highlights high-performing PCMH practices

Since 2009, the primary care practices participating in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s Patient-Centered Medical Home program have been transforming their practices to meet the needs of patients by providing holistic, patient-focused care, which has resulted in higher quality care, better outcomes and lower overall costs.

There are currently 4,713 PCMH-designated physicians in 1,641 practices in counties all across Michigan. We featured several high-performing PCMH practices in a series of articles in The Record, one of our other provider-focused newsletters.

We encourage you to check out the following links to read about these practices and what they’re doing to improve patient care.

• “The Pediatric Place: Creating a centralized hub to facilitate information exchange,” published in the April 2023 Record, details how adding an island in the middle of exam rooms has facilitated collaboration, along with other initiatives that have enhanced patient care and outcomes.

• “MyMichigan Family Practice Center: Building a high-functioning team,” published in the May 2023 Record, gives examples of processes that the practice uses to encourage team building, including short, stand-up meetings.

• “Bronson Internal Medicine: Embracing team-based care to support patients,” published in the June 2023 Record, gives advice from Dr. Andrew Chen, who said: “It’s important for providers to trust and utilize the ancillary staff such as social workers, complex care managers for chronic conditions, behavioral health care managers for mental health issues and pharmacy staff for medication issues.”

• “Forest Hills Pediatric Associates: Using PCMH and Collaborative Care to better serve patients,” published in the July 2023 Record, recounts how care management has brought about increased provider and patient satisfaction at their practice.

• “Ruoff’s family practice: Team approach leads to high-quality care,” published in the August 2023 Record, has this comment from Dr. Gary S. Ruoff: “The PCMH Interpretive Guidelines provide a great outline for delivering high-quality care and holding the practice accountable to ensure they have a standardized and documented process to catch any patients who might otherwise fall through the cracks.”

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network are nonprofit corporations and independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.