Dive Brief:
- NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) and Columbia University Irving Medical Center debuted a new outpatient center aimed at providing team-based care for women with high-risk pregnancies.
- The 5,300-square foot facility features four exam rooms, three consult rooms and meeting rooms for specialists to collaborate on a multidisciplinary approach to care.
- Care coordinators will streamline and schedule visits, and specialists will work to develop customized treatment plans that optimize the mother’s and baby’s wellbeing.
Dive Insight:
Maternal mortality in the U.S. is on the rise, with more than 50,000 women a year experiencing serious complications around pregnancy and childbirth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About half of all maternal deaths are preventable.
Last month, Humana announced a new maternity bundled reimbursement model for commercial group members with low- and medium-risk pregnancies. The value-based care initiative is initially being offered at five OB-GYN practices.
Such efforts to bolster maternal care come as some people face difficulty in finding affordable health plans that cover pregnancy. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation report warned that the Trump administration’s plan for short-term expansion, coupled with the demise of the individual market penalty, could lead to more plans that do not cover the Affordable Care Act's essential health benefits. Those services, including maternity care, behavioral health and prescription drugs, often aren't covered under short-term plans that don't have to meet ACA requirements.
While the new clinic, called the Mothers Center, will handle a range of complications and risk factors, the most common are cardiac conditions, NYP said.
“Increasingly, women who are considering pregnancy or are already pregnant have significant complexities that require seamless, multidisciplinary collaboration,” Leslie Moroz, director of the Mothers Center, said in a statement. “The reasons for this include delayed childbearing, assisted reproductive technologies and effective management of conditions that in the past would have made pregnancy ill-advised or not possible.”
In addition to providing specialists and coordinated care plans, the center offers access to counseling, consult rooms outfitted for telemedicine and integrated postnatal care and research to ensure continued management of medical conditions that inform treatment for future high-risk pregnancies.
While the Mothers Center coordinates the multidisciplinary care, the billing will continue to be handled by the relevant specialties, such as maternal-fetal medicine or cardiology, NYP spokeswoman Alexandra Simpson told Healthcare Dive.