Remaking Chronic Care in the Age of Health Care Reform: Changes for Lower Cost, Higher Quality Treatment

This revealing book tackles the daunting problem of increasing chronic illness in America, offering fresh ideas for the ways in which the challenge can be successfully managed.

Remaking Chronic Care in the Age of Health Care Reform: Changes for Lower Cost, Higher Quality Treatment is nothing less than a blueprint for a new mode of chronic care. It depicts a current system in which there is little financial incentive to furnish coordinated services via appropriate primary care and few penalties for failure to deliver such care. Arguing that the current system is unsustainable, the book documents efforts that have been made to promote better coordination of care through patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations.

Specifically, the book focuses on linking the ongoing innovations in health care practices with the supports for scaling up innovations found in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It shows how expanding and improving primary care as the vehicle for care coordination will reduce costs for those with conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, or other longstanding disorders, but also makes it clear that incentives have to be realigned if such improved primary care is to become a reality.

• 400 up-to-date references

• A brief history of the development of patient-centered primary care

• Qualitative descriptions of what it means to have a chronic illness and how it can be managed in the community

• Comments from patients about appropriate and inappropriate professional behavior