Blue Cross promotes coordination of care

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has a process to promote continuity and coordination of care among specialists and primary care physicians, as well as behavioral health and primary care physicians.

Collaboration among practitioners can greatly improve both member satisfaction and health outcomes.

We collect and analyze data each year to assess coordination of care and the exchange of information between specialists, behavioral health and primary care doctors following both inpatient and outpatient consultations. Many studies have identified fragmentation of care as a problem in the medical system. The information we collect is important as we work to improve continuity and coordination of care within our network.

Patient care that isn’t coordinated between providers and across settings results in:

• Confusion for members
• Increased risks to patient safety due to errors
• Unnecessary costs due to duplicate testing

Our goal for exchange of information between the specialist and the primary care doctor, as well as behavioral health provider and primary care physician, is 100 percent. This goal can be accomplished by:

• Ensuring that the specialist and behavioral health care provider have the correct primary care doctor information at the time of the visit
• Forwarding the post-visit information to the primary care doctor
• Offering behavioral health patients the opportunity to sign an authorization for release of information. If the patient declines to share this information, the provider should make a note of that on the form.

We encourage all providers to continue to take steps to enhance the information exchange across the continuum of care.