Lori Herf, a Legislative Advocate in the firm's Columbus office, was quoted in the February 6, 2010, Dayton Daily News article, "Legislation Would Allow Testing of Medical Home Model in Dayton Area."
According to the article, revisions to pending state legislation may now allow a pilot project in the Dayton area to test an emerging model of health care—patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs)—to move ahead. House Bill 198 has been caught in the crossfire between physicians and advanced-practice nurses (APNs), who disagree over whether those nurses have the right to head up PCMHs. The latest version of the bill would let four APN primary care practices be part of the pilot, in addition to 40 physician practices, 10 of which would be affiliated with Wright State University' medical school, according to the article.
Herf, a former staff member in the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate and a lobbyist for the Ohio Association of Advanced Practice Nurses, said she's glad APNs would be part of the pilot project. But she's concerned the bill's proposed advisory committee—on which APNs would have only 3 of 12 voting members—could define an APN primary care practice as a portion of a physician practice whose patients are seen exclusively by an APN, not as an APN-led practice. "I want to make sure it's clear that it's supposed to be an APN-led practice," Herf said.