Eight State Medicaid Teams Selected to Meet in Washington, D.C. for Summit to Advance...

Eight State Medicaid Teams Selected to Meet in Washington, D.C. for Summit to
Advance Patient Centered Medical Home Model

July 24-25 Medical Home Summit joint initiative of the Patient Centered
Primary Care Collaborative and National Academy for State Health Policy

WASHINGTON, June 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Academy of State
Health Policy (NASHP) and the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative
(PCPCC) announced today that eight state Medicaid initiatives were selected
through a competitive process to participate in a July summit in Washington,
DC. The invitation-only Medical Home Summit is designed to rapidly advance
implementation of the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model into state
Medicaid programs.

The Medical Home Summit is supported by a grant from The Commonwealth Fund and
is a joint initiative of NASHP, a non-profit, non-partisan organization
dedicated to helping states achieve excellence in health policy and practice,
and the PCPCC, a multi-stakeholder collaborative organized to provide better
outcomes for patients, more efficient payment to physicians and better value,
accountability and transparency to purchasers and consumers of health care.

The July 24-25 Summit will be a learning event designed to help foster
innovation and widespread adoption of the PCMH model. Teams from these
leading-edge states will share information from current medical home
demonstrations and policy developments with other teams in a collaborative
setting.

"State policy makers are interested more and more in developing models of
service delivery that support effective, patient-centered primary care," said
Neva Kaye, Senior Program Director with NASHP. "The Medical Home Summit will
help these and other states improve the availability of medical homes to
Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) enrollees."

Of 30 state Medicaid programs that submitted applications, teams from eight
states were selected--Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma,
Washington, Idaho, Louisiana and Oregon. Selection was based on specific
criteria:

-- The state's documented commitment to improving the quality and
availability of medical homes to Medicaid and/or State Children's
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) participants;
-- The extensiveness of the state's initiative; and
-- Those states with plans already underway for improving the quality or
availability of medical homes to Medicaid and/or SCHIP participants.

The PCPCC's Center to Promote Public Payer Implementation is actively involved
in the Medical Home Summit. This working group of PCPCC members develops
ways to assist public payers as they implement and refine programs to embed
the PCMH model by offering technical assistance, sharing best practices and
giving guidance on the development of successful funding models.

"There is significant value in collaboration, and this venue is designed to
bring together like-minded Medicaid and SCHIP program leaders from across the
country so they can build from one another's experience and spirit of
innovation," said Edwina Rogers, PCPCC's executive director and vice president
of health policy, The ERISA Industry Committee. "We expect the Medical Home
Summit will be a catalyst for programs in these states to leap forward in
their drive to implement the patient centered medical home concept and bring
enhanced care to the populations they serve."

For more information about the Joint NASHP-PCPCC State Medicaid Taskforce go
to
http://www.nashp.org/_catdisp_page.cfm?LID=848479CC-1806-43B4-AB0061F96E2426B3.

For more information about PCPCC's Center for Public Payer Implementation go
to http://www.pcpcc.net/content/center-promote-public-payer-implementation.

For more information about the Commonwealth Fund's Patient-Centered Primary
Care program, go to
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/programs/programs_list.htm?attrib_id=11936

About the National Academy for State Health Policy
The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) is an independent academy
of state health policy makers working together to identify emerging issues,
develop policy solutions, and improve state health policy and practice. As a
non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to helping states achieve
excellence in health policy and practice, NASHP provides a forum on critical
health issues across branches and agencies of state government. Visit NASHP's
Web site at www.nashp.org.

About the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative
The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative is a coalition of more than
150 major employers, consumer groups, organizations representing primary care
physicians, and other stakeholders who have joined to advance the patient
centered "medical home." The Collaborative believes that, if implemented, the
patient centered medical home will improve the health of patients and the
health care delivery system. For more information on the patient centered
medical home and a complete list of the PCPCC members, please visit
http://www.pcpcc.net/.

About the Commonwealth Fund
The Commonwealth Fund is an independent foundation supporting independent
research on health policy reform and a high performance health system. For
more information, please visit www.commonwealthfund.org

SOURCE The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative; National Academy for
State Health Policy

Karla Hurter of Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, +1-703-319-0957,
khurter@health2resources.com