Health Resources & Services Administration
HRSA funds nearly 1,400 health centers and approximately 100 Health Center Program look-alike organizations, collectively operating more than 14,000 service delivery sites in communities across the country. Health centers deliver primary care to the nation’s underserved individuals and families, including 1 in 3 people living in poverty and 1 in 5 rural residents. In 2021, health centers served more than 30 million people.
HRSA PATIENT-CENTERED MEDICAL HOME SUPPORT
The Health Resources and Services Administration invests in health centers to ensure that people in resource-limited communities receive quality, patient-centered, affordable health care. This way, HRSA provides standards and guidelines for not only the development of health centers, but also for their oversight.
In seeking the highest-quality health care for these communities, HRSA also supports centers that attain and maintain NCQA PCMH Recognition. HRSA’s support demonstrates its commitment to health care access, team-based, coordinated care and quality improvement. Earning PCMH Recognition helps health centers develop these aspects of care while increasing patient and staff satisfaction and reducing costs.
NCQA’s PCMH Recognition program is the most widely adopted PCMH evaluation program in the country.
Overview
WHY PCMH FOR HEALTH CENTERS?
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Benefits for Health Centers
The PCMH model of care can help build better relationships between patients and their clinical care teams.
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Alignment to Social Determinants of Health
Health centers care for patient populations with unique characteristics and SDOH that create significant health disparities. The Health Center Program Compliance Manual requires centers to assess their patient populations and identify SDOH and health disparities.
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Alignment to HRSA Requirements
HRSA uses the Uniform Data Systems (UDS) Resources to assess the operational, financial and clinical quality performance of health centers and uses the Health Center Program Compliance Manual to assess compliance with required tasks.
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Alignment to Medicaid Requirements
Medicaid requirements are designed to monitor and improve aspects of care and services that are also found in key NCQA PCMH concept areas such as access, health care costs and clinical quality outcomes.
The Health Center Perspective on PCMH
This series of HRSA-commissioned videos demonstrates how the PCMH model of care can greatly impact and improve health center operations.
This video features interviews with the California and North Carolina PCA staff members, discussing their efforts and how they have helped centers improve the quality of care and service they provide and maintain that quality in shifting circumstances and varied challenges.
Learn More...This video examines how Cherokee Health Systems PCMH infrastructure and commitment to this model of care provided flexibility, creativity and resilience to tackle the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Learn More...This video highlights Grace Health response to the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrate how Behavioral Health providers were able to integrate PCMH practice’s workflow using telehealth across a spectrum of customers.
Learn More...Penobscot Community Health Care discuss how they manage challenges related to staffing/resource shortages by utilizing elements of the PCMH model such as the team-based approaches to care and access options (e.g., telemedicine) to maintain the quality of care and service they provide.
Learn More...This video demonstrates Piedmont Health’s success with the PCMH concept of care and details where the care model can make a difference – for patients, and staff.
Learn More...This video highlight the superlative work Shasta Community Health Center is doing to engaging patients to ensure routine preventive services, like cancer screenings, are back on track following the crisis of the COVID pandemic.
Learn More...This video focuses on how the PCMH model helped Swope Health Services excel at identifying and addressing health inequity and healthcare disparities in the post-COVID healthcare landscape.
Learn More...Animated Videos on Key PCMH Recognition Processes and Systems
HOW HEALTH CENTERS CAN APPLY FOR HRSA SUPPORT OF PCMH RECOGNITION
Community health centers can use this link to find step-by-step information for completing their center’s Notice of Intent (NOI): HRSA Accreditation and Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition Initiative | Bureau of Primary Health Care. If you already submitted your NOI, you can confirm your NOI’s status with HRSA via the BPHC contact form.
To submit an NOI, Look-Alikes can navigate to the BPHC contact form, go to Look-Alike Designation, select the Accreditation and Patient Centered Medical Home Recognition (APCMH) – LAL option and then select the Notice of Intent option from the drop-down menu to submit a NOI. To submit a PCMH Recognition certificate, select the Updating Recognition and Accreditation Certificates option from the drop-down menu.
If the sites in question are no longer operational, please alert your Representative (“Ask a Question” in Q-PASS) so we can update our records.
Consider submitting your NOI as soon as possible. Direct questions to HRSA via the BPHC contact form.
EDUCATION & TRAINING
NCQA provides education, training and technical assistance to community health centers and Look-Alikes that want to become NCQA-Recognized PCMHs or maintain their Recognition.
• Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA)
LEARN MORE ABOUT PCMH RECOGNITION
NCQA’s PCMH Recognition program is the most widely adopted PCMH evaluation program in the country. More than 10,000 practices (with 50,000+ clinicians) are Recognized by NCQA. More than 95 organizations support NCQA Recognition through financial incentives, transformation support, care management, learning collaboratives or MOC credit.
The PCMH model of care puts patients at the forefront of care. Patient-centered medical homes build better relationships between patients and their clinical care teams.
Research shows that PCMHs improve quality and the patient experience, and increase staff satisfaction—while reducing health care costs. Practices that earn Recognition have made a commitment to continuous quality improvement and a patient-centered approach to care.
Learn more about NCQA’s PCMH Recognition program here.