Medical Home, Developmental Monitoring/Screening, and Early Autism Identification.

A Boyd et al. (2024) looked at 26,000 U.S. kids with autism. They asked: does having a "medical home" help doctors spot autism earlier?

A medical home means one main doctor plus care coordination, referrals, and family help. The team checked which kids got an autism label in the past year.

Kids who named one usual doctor were a large share more likely to be identified this year. Surprisingly, kids with lots of care coordination were a large share less likely.

The overall medical-home score barely mattered. Only the two parts above moved the needle.

Meimei et al. (2022) show telehealth screens catch many cases fast. Brian’s work says in-person usual doctors still matter for the final label.

Stainbrook et al. (2019) found telemedicine raised rural referrals. Brian adds: once families reach any doctor, keep the same name on the chart.

Stephens et al. (2018) saw heavy care coordination delay diagnosis. Brian saw the same odd pattern, so the signal is real, not a fluke.

You can’t change the whole medical system today, but you can ask families, "Who is your regular doctor?" If they don’t have one, help them pick and schedule. If they have a care-coordinator, check that extra appointments are not slowing things down. These two quick steps may shave months off the wait for an autism diagnosis.