Letter: Government intrusion dilutes PCMH concept

Regarding your article, “PCMH: How to make care coordination work” (May 25, 2014): Isn’t it interesting...What ‘goes around comes around.’ Something new? Isn’t that what we in primary care used to do, and some still do, for oh so many years without needing articles in Medical Economics to guide us?

During my many years of solo pediatric practice, I was the medical home for all of my patients. I and my pediatric peers saw our patients in the office, at night  (if necessary for acute illness), and in the hospital when we admitted them. We referred them to specialists when necessary, and guided and oversaw ALL their medical care.

It is only with the advent of intrusive government regulations, mandates of various insurance plans causing patient shifting from plan to plan and so from doctor to doctor that the PCMH [patient-centered medical home] has been diluted and in most cases lost.

I seriously doubt that articles on how to make PCMH work will change much in the present-day medical milieu. I feel sorry for the present day primary physician.... us ‘old timers,’ we truly lived and practiced in the golden age of medicine.

Horst D. Weinberg, MD

 Sacramento, California