May 26 2011
The Miami Herald: Yes, There's A Doctor In The House: Medical Home Visits Grow
House calls, once thought to be too time-consuming and not very cost-effective, are making a comeback as health care providers recognize that they're actually the answer to good care for patients who can't make it to a doctor's office. Medicare-paid house calls have been steadily increasing, according to government figures, and doctors report the same for non-Medicare patients, according to the American Academy for Home Care Physicians. … Now a three-year federal government pilot program called Independence at Home is encouraging doctors to pick up those black medical bags of yore and pay a visit to their sickest patients (Veciana-Suarez, 5/24).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. |