CMS proposes new codes in 2014 fee schedule to benefit family physicians.

addition, AHRQ’s Improving Primary Care Initiative currently sponsors a number of initiatives related to improving care for patients with MCC, including work on: care coordination, team-based care, self-management support, clinical decision support, integration of behavioral/mental health with primary care, clinicalcommunity linkages, health information technology integration, and healthcare/system redesign. The AHRQ MCC Research Network comprises 18 pioneer grant projects funded in 2008, and an additional 27 grant studies funded in 2010 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Each of the 2008-funded studies focused on the use of preventive services for patients with MCC to improve understanding about which interventions provide the greatest benefit to people with MCC. The 2010 funded grants focused on exploratory research or infrastructure development to address comparative effectiveness research to optimize prevention and healthcare management for the complex patient. Roughly one-half of the 2010 funded grants used existing, or easily developed, data sources to help prioritize testing and treatments for patients with MCC, and to suggest appropriate adaptations to recommended care guidelines. The remaining investigators developed new datasets or other infrastructure to fill a void in research on MCC and conducted pilot studies to demonstrate the use of the new infrastructure. They also worked to make these new data sets publically accessible to other researchers. AHRQ also funded a Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to support the work of the MCC Research Network by facilitating information sharing and collaboration across the Network investigators. The TAC is staffed by Abt Associates, the MacColl Center for Healthcare Innovation, and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).