National Meeting on Increasing Investment in Primary Care

FMAHealth in collaboration with the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) sponsored, the first national conversation on increasing investment in primary care on November 9, 2018. The workshop followed the PCPCC’s Annual Conference where a broad audience was educated about the importance of increased investment in primary care. Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, spoke about the importance of primary care and ways in which CMMI would be moving forward with alternative primary care payment models.

Twenty-five states were represented at the workshop. Participants heard from Oregon, Rhode Island, Colorado and Delaware about their work to raise investment in primary care to 12% or more of their states’ healthcare budgets in order to achieve the kind of care envisioned by the Shared Principles of Primary Care. Increased investment in primary care could support care coordination, technologies like telehealth, mental and behavioral health integration, medication management and population health, including better integration with community health workers.

During the workshop, payers, employers, clinicians, consumers and legislators worked together to determine, not “whether”, but “how” to increase investment in primary care in as many states as possible over the next few years. Through frank and open dialogue, stakeholders discussed both opportunities and obstacles on the way to greater investment in primary care. Following foundation-laying discussions in the morning, the afternoon was devoted to building multi-stakeholder action plans for specific states based on the particular strengths and challenges of each. Six additional states developed action plans to increase primary care investment in their states. The PCPCC will continue to coordinate this multi-state effort and help move it forward.

Go to top