The AAFP has long urged CMS to pay for care coordination and other cognitive services that play a pivotal role in enhancing health care access, improving quality and controlling costs.

And now CMS has started to heed that call by including a provision in the proposed 2013 Medicare physician payment regulation (765-page PDF; About PDFs) that would compensate family physicians and other primary care physicians for providing nonface-to-face care that helps patients transition back into the community after hospital and nursing home stays. Although AAFP is continuing to study the proposal, it is proposed that CMS would establish a new G code to pay primary care physicians and other primary care health professionals for furnishing a range of care-coordination services after a patient is discharged from a hospital or other health care facility. These services include obtaining and reviewing a patient's discharge summary, reviewing diagnostic tests and treatments, establishing a care plan, and communicating with other physicians and members of the health care team.

Complete coverage of this story is available at http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/government... .