The Empanelment Guide provides step-by-step guidance to help Community Health Centers and other primary care practices implement and sustain empanelment—the assignment or attribution of individual patients to primary care providers (PCPs) and care teams while considering patient and family preferences. Clearly defined patient panels support proactive population health management, continuity of care, trusting patient–care team relationships, care team accountability, and data-informed decisions about access, scheduling, panel size, and the balance between patient demand and provider capacity.
The guide covers leadership engagement, role clarity, staff participation, panel manager responsibilities, health information technology (HIT) infrastructure, panel-level data and reporting, initial patient assignment, panel sizing and balancing, and ongoing panel management and maintenance. It also addresses organizational policies and procedures, patient choice and PCP changes, patient communication, continuity and patient-centered access, managed care plan attribution, and outreach to assigned-but-not-yet-seen patients. Additional guidance explores racial and linguistic concordance, panel-level analyses of disparities, whole-person care, behavioral and social health complexity, virtual care and telehealth, and artificial intelligence and machine learning for supply-and-demand management.