Rural Health Clinic Readiness for Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition: Preparing for the Evolving Healthcare Marketplace

The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model both reaffirms traditional primary care values such as continuity of care, connection with an identified personal clinician, provision of same dayand after-hours access and also prepares providers to succeed in the evolving health care system by focusing on accountability, continuous quality improvement, public reporting of quality data, data exchange, and patient satisfaction. However, little is known about the readiness of the over 4,000 Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) to meet the PCMH Recognition standards established by the National Council for Quality Assurance (NCQA). This policy brief reports findings from a survey of RHCs that examined their capacity to meet the NCQA PCMH requirements, and discusses the implications of the findings for efforts to support RHC capacity development.