CareFirst Still Alive

If you are one of many of our patients who received a letter signifying our resignation, please know that we have rescinded that resignation.  My previous blogs have some highlights of our dialogues with CareFirst and other insurance companies.  Thanks to the Maryland Health Care Commission's invitation to our practice to join the Multi-payor PCMH Pilot Program as a site, we were able to re-engage in business with CareFirst.  We are hopeful that the health insurance companies will see the wisdom of supporting best primary care practices, including the use of health information technology and interfaces between healthcare settings.  We are seeking to smooth the transitions between care settings for our patients, reducing medical errors and redundancy, and improving overall efficiency in the process.  I, for one, have been working very hard to put new pieces in place that will further improve communication between our patients and our practice.

We just updated to eClinicalWorks Version 9 which will qualify us for the Medicare Meaningful Use bonus, but more importantly it will add important new features to enhance patient care.  On the newest version of the Patient Portal, we will offer open scheduling, allowing patients to choose the open appointments which best suit their own schedules.  We will also be able to post lab results from Quest and Labcorp which individuals can securely review online.  Many other processes have been streamlined, including automatic appointment confirmations.  This will free up our personnel and providers to server patients in a more personal way.

Finally, we are working on hiring a nurse practitioner to assist us with care management while building a panel of her/his own patients.  I look forward to the arrival of a colleague who shares our vision for the Patient-Centered Medical Home.

We apologize for any distress the CareFirst letter may have caused.  We rescinded our resignation in early March; however, CareFirst had set a process in motion that could not be interrupted, even a month in advance.  Thanks for understanding!  Please contact your insurance company if any further questions arise.