Understanding the Healthy San Francisco Medical Home and How It Functions for Different Patient Populations.

This report examines the role of the primary care medical home in Healthy San Francisco, a health care access program for uninsured adults in the city and county of San Francisco. The program’s medical home requirement—and its associated referral system—appear to have conferred several benefits to San Francisco’s safety-net delivery system, including strengthening ties between the uninsured people and their particular medical home, and allowing providers to focus on the health of a panel of patients. However, participants and providers also reported some concerns with the program, indicating areas for improvement in the future.