| While overall Medicare and Medicaid costs continue to skyrocket, certain segments of the population consume a greater percentage of health care spending than most others. For many years, federal and state government agencies, as well as local municipalities, have struggled to develop programs to support individuals with severe mental illness (Mechanic, 2012). Even though effective, evidence-based programs have been developed to work with the mentally ill population, successful implementation has been limited (Mechanic, 2012, p. 376).;There is a potential resolution with Section 2703 of the Affordable Care Act which encourages state Medicaid programs to offer a health home option (Mechanic, 2012). The goal for the health home option is to build on the existing medical home model and create cohesive linkages with other medical and social support organizations. The purpose of these actions is to foster communication between medical and behavioral health care providers for those individuals with multiple chronic illnesses (New York State Department of Health, 2012, p. 2).;Both federal and state governments have established various initial patient quality measures which all Health Home organizations are required to track and report, however, there seems to be little focus on how well the Health Home organizations succeed at comprehensive care management between various providers caring for this highly intense patient population. Through the systematic assessment of the critical elements of integrated care, Health Home organizations can monitor downstream providers and ensure a high quality integrated care. In turn, it can be assumed that if overall improvements in patient care were achieved, Health Home organizations would be more likely to successfully meet the established federal and state quality measures for individuals with chronic behavioral and medical health conditions.;Keywords: Health Care Administration, Dr. Gail Young, Health Home, Integrated Care, DMIC. |
