This is the kind of event whose significance typically is only remarked upon years after it took place:
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Opens Networks and Primary Care Medical Home Program to Nurse Practitioners (Fierce Healthcare, November 8, 2010)
[Baltimore MD-based] CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst) today announced that, effective immediately, it will permit nurse practitioners (NPs) to participate in its health care provider networks as independent primary care providers.
….[NPs] must attest that they have a written collaborative agreement with a physician of the same specialty who is a member in good standing of the same CareFirst provider networks as the NP. Similarly, NPs who meet network participation criteria will be able to participate with primary care physicians as part of a medical panel or form their own medical panels as part of CareFirst’s PCMH.
While the “attested collaboration” requirement sounds like it could meaningfully throttle the numbers of NPs who can qualify as primary care practitioners, we’re enthused about the initiative overall, and are especially keen about the “effective immediately” aspect.
Here’s the story as reported in the Maryland Gazette.Net:
TweetInsurer Expands Primary Provider Status to Nurses (Gazette.Net, November 6, 2010)
The nonprofit insurer previously let nurse practitioners practice independently of physicians only in certain medically underserved areas that had limited access to primary care physicians, company officials said in a statement Thursday.
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Feb 11
Emerging Convenient Care Models: Good for ‘Individual Us’, Not As Good for ‘Institutional Us’
The perceptive Sandra Yin published her last editorial for FierceHealthcare last Friday. Her parting observations, titled How Boundary-Breaking Disruptive Healthcare Gets It Right (Sandra Yin, FierceHealthcare, 2/25/11) focused on signs of disruptive innovation in health care – and specifically on the convenient care models of that specific type of innovation.
She summarized her remarks thus:
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