Empanelment Guide

About the Guide

This guide offers technical and relational guidance on how to implement empanelment, which involves assigning individual patients to individual primary care providers and care teams with sensitivity to patient and family preference. The guide addresses key considerations for empanelment, including change management, staffing, organizational policies and procedures, and health information technology requirements, as well as concrete steps for conducting initial patient assignment and ongoing population management using panel-level data.

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Empanelment Resources

Resource 1: Panel Manager Job Description

This sample panel manager job description can be used to develop a new panel manager role or to add panel management duties to an existing position.

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Resource 2: Sample Organizational Chart

This sample organizational chart offers a dotted line reporting model for an organizational panel manager, a role that requires a great deal of interdisciplinary collaboration and leadership.

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Resource 3: Suggested Empanelment Trainings for Staff

This resource describes suggested empanelment trainings for a range of staff roles, as well as a list of existing online training resources on empanelment.

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Resource 4: Sample Empanelment Policy and Procedure

This set of sample empanelment policies and procedures addresses key operational issues relating to empanelment, including initial empanelment, changes to provider staffing, and scripts for care team members to reinforce and communicate established procedures.

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Resource 5: Determining New Slots if Not Using Weighting

This resource offers guidance on estimating attrition when determining panel size and fullness, if another weighting method is not being used.

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Resource 6: Single-Cut Initial Empanelment Methodology

This resource describes visit weights for conducting empanelment using a single-cut approach.

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Resource 7: Example PCP Change Form

This sample PCP change form can be used as a template for CHCs to develop their own form for patient-initiated PCP changes.

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Resource 8: Welcome Letter to the Patient

This sample provider welcome letter to the patient can be used as a template for developing a form letter to send to newly empaneled patients.

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Resource 9: Reports Necessary for Ongoing Empanelment

This resource lists key reports for launching and maintaining empanelment.

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Suggested Citation and Acknowledgements

Recommended citation: Population Health Management Initiative. Greg Vachon, Deena Pourshaban, and Ariel Singer. Empanelment Implementation Guide. In: Coleman K and Singer A, editors. Building the Foundation Implementation Guide Series. 1st ed. Oakland, CA: Kaiser Permanente, Health Management Associates, and Pyramid Communications; 2023.

Acknowledgments: This document was created by the Population Health Management Initiative (PHMI), a California partnership of the Department of Health Care Services, Kaiser Permanente and Community Health Centers. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of these partners and the Regional Associations of California along with the many other academic, health plan and consulting partners who shared their expertise and insights freely as we co-designed the initiative and created these guides.

Individual reviewers and content contributors to the first edition of the Building the Foundation Implementation Guide Series: Jennifer Sayles and Elise Pomerance (KP PHMI); Palav Barbaria, Yoshi Laing, David Tian, Jeff Norris and Karen Mark (DHCS); Allie Budenz and Cindy Keltner (CPCA); Jeanene Smith, Catherine Knox, Nancy Kamp, Ethan Norris, Leslie Brooks and MaryEllen Mathis (Health Management Associates); Anne Tillery, Sarah Starr, Karis Cady, Candace Jackson, Josh Daniel and Denise Rhiner (Pyramid Communications); and Veenu Aulakh

With additional contributions from: Pyramid Design Team and Kaiser Permanente PHMI team.

 

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