Geriatric patient-centered medical home

To the Editor: The discussion by Gennari and colleagues¹ on how to obtain certification from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for a geriatric patient-centered medical home was very timely and instructive. The great effort that must be put into getting one’s practice certified was thoroughly documented.

Some community-based physicians will not require financial incentives to undertake this laborious process, finding sufficient reward in continuous quality improvement. However, economic reality dictates that time spent on certification must be taken away from other, productive (ie, income-generating) activities. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask what kind of financial incentives will be provided to physicians who obtain NCQA certification, and which organization or entity will pay for these incentives.