Autism-specific primary care medical home intervention.

Researchers tested an autism-specific medical home at a children’s hospital.

Families got one doctor who knew autism and a care coordinator.

The team tracked 6 months of visits and asked parents about care quality.

Families in the medical home were 3 times more likely to get coordinated care.

Parents felt more heard and rated the clinic higher.

Yet stress at home stayed the same—care was smoother, but life was still hard.

Kuhn et al. (2022) later moved the same idea into high schools.

Their Transitioning Together program worked best when schools already had strong family ties—echoing the medical home’s need for a ready team.

Hamama et al. (2021) showed telehealth can reach more families, but the medical home still wins for hands-on coordination.

Klein et al. (2024) found Black and multiracial families still hit walls with doctors. This looks like a clash, yet the medical-home study did not include many families of color, so the gap is real, not a contradiction.

Ask your families’ pediatric clinic if they offer an autism medical home. If not, push for a single point-of-contact nurse or social worker. Even without full medical-home status, one coordinator can triple the odds that referrals, scripts, and school letters actually happen on time.