New Primary Care Data Released by Milbank Memorial Fund

Milbank Memorial Fund Releases New Primary Care State Data

Dear Members and Friends:

Today the Milbank Memorial Fund released a report titled Aligning Payers and Practices to Transform Primary Care: A Report from the Multi-State Collaborative. The publication describes the efforts of 17 different states to transform their primary care delivery systems in order to improve the health of their populations and reduce costs. Since 2009, the Multi-state Collaborative has provided a forum for its members to collaborate across states and with the federal government, sharing data and lessons learned about investment in primary care transformation.

The report highlights how these states went about transforming primary care to patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) - as a working definition of high-performing primary care practice - through aligned payment reform.

There are four major takeaways regarding multi-payer primary care transformation that have implications for primary care transformation, state-convened provider payment reform initiatives, and health care transformation efforts requiring alignment across multiple payers:

Health care cost containment (and therefore affordability) cannot be achieved without delivery system transformation across multiple aligned payers.
Delivery system transformation is predicated upon access to high-quality primary care and supporting services.
High-quality primary care is more likely to occur in a consistently supported and formally recognized PCMH setting.
The creation and nurturing of primary care transformation can only be successful in a uniformly applied multi-payer model coupled with collaborative learning and team-based care.

We congratulate Dr. Dulsky-Watkins and the Milbank Memorial Fund for supporting and sharing the lessons that states have learned as they embrace high-performing primary care. This report helps stakeholders across the board - policymakers, payers, health plans, and health care providers - understand what it takes to make health system reform achievable. The PCPCC applauds the leadership in these Multi-State Collaborative states in sharing their expertise, building the knowledge base, and leading the way towards a health system focused on better care, better quality, and lower cost with patient-centered primary care at the foundation.

To learn more about the report and its findings, visit the links below.
Read the Executive Summary
Read the full Report

Sincerely,