There is widespread agreement that the United States must expand and improve primary care in order to achieve better health outcomes at a lower cost. A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) published last May concluded that primary care is the only medical discipline where a greater supply produces improvements in population health, longer lives, and greater health equity. This growing consensus is a good thing.
The U.S. Health Care System Isn’t Built for Primary Care
Box checking and perverse incentives undermine the patient/physician relationship.
September 28, 2021
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Summary.
There is broad recognition that primary care can and should play a more central role in U.S. health care — that doing so will improve outcomes and reduce costs. But this will require rethinking the processes and metrics that have come to dominate primary care and instituting changes that place more emphasis on the patient-physician relationship. Three places to start are reform the payment model, fix EHR technology, and change medical education.