The Group Visit Project is available to assist healthcare providers in implementing the best practice of medical group visits. Group visits, also known as shared medical appointments, are commonly used to treat diabetes, asthma, heart failure, chronic pain, and obesity/overweight. They have been demonstrated to improve the quality of care and patient outcomes, increase patient satisfaction, enhance the engagement of patients as partners in the management of their health, increase physician productivity and practice efficiency, increase provider satisfaction rates and reduce emergency department visits and hospitalization rates.
Group visits support the patient centered medical home (PCMH) model and are reimbursed utilizing the same evaluation and management (E & M) codes as traditional office visits. Group visits support the attainment of additional reimbursement through quality incentive programs, pay for performance programs and PCMH payment for added value.
The Group Visit Project has assembled a number of resources to assist physicians and their staffs in implementing group visits including: the Medical Group Visit Implementation Guide, a diabetes group visit progress note template, a rack card for patient recruitment, and a sample curriculum for obesity group visits. The Group Visit Project can arrange for interested healthcare providers to observe a group visit and its physician experts are available to assist with the design, implementation, and initial facilitation of group visits within any Genesee County medical practice. The Group Visit Project Workgroup, composed of hospital, physician, and health insurer representatives, meets regularly to support the adoption of group visits by offering guest presenters to provide patient education during a group visit and problem solving capabilities to eliminate any challenges or barriers to group visit implementation. For additional information contact the Greater Flint Health Coalition.