Blue Cross committed to coordination of care among practitioners

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan collects and analyzes data each year to assess the coordination of care and exchange of information among specialists, behavioral health providers and primary care physicians following inpatient and outpatient consultations. This information is important as we work to improve continuity and coordination of care within our network.

Patient care that isn’t coordinated across care settings results in confusion for members, increased risks to patient safety and unnecessary costs due to duplicate testing or procedures. Collaboration among health care providers can also greatly improve member satisfaction.

We can work together to accomplish our goal of 100% coordination of care among all providers by:

• Ensuring that specialists and behavioral health care providers have the correct contact information about the patient’s primary care doctor at the time of the visit
• Requesting that specialists and behavioral health providers forward post-visit information to the patient’s primary care provider
• Asking behavioral health patients to sign an authorization for release of information or including a note of refusal in their chart if a patient declines to share information

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