Iowa medical home provides lessons for health care reform

The Associated Press looks at what benefits medical homes may bring to health care by looking at one in Iowa: "A thousand miles from the health care debate in Washington, Dr. Don Klitgaard and his colleagues are carrying out their own reform in a small Iowa community." Policymakers, including President Barack Obama, "have praised such experiments" as a way to achieve "better quality without costly complications. But change doesn't come easy. In a traditional practice, the doctor is the center of universe. In the new model, he or she is part of a team. ... Klitgaard is wondering if Congress will do enough for primary care doctors, the ones expected to carry out the transformation. Medicare, the government health program for seniors, doesn't pay for the care coordination, monitoring, and coaching of patients that are part of his model" (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/28).