Lessons for Primary Care from the First Ten Years of Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration Projects

Over the past decade, Medicare has tested care coordination programs in an effort to achieve the triple aim of improving the patient experience, improving population health, and lowering costs. Although savings from this promising concept have not materialized, private payers are starting to offer blended payments to primary care. From these demonstrations, we propose 5 lessons for practices implementing care coordination: (1) minimize expenses by sharing resources and avoiding cost ineffective interventions; (2) concentrate on high utilizers; (3) foster relationships with both providers and patients; (4) track patients across the medical neighborhood in real time; and (5) extend rather than a duplicate the efforts of primary care practices.