It's Time for Primary Care to take Advantage of Advanced Technology

Dr. Christopher Crow is cofounder and CEO of Catalyst Health Group, a primary care network that works for physicians and patients. U.S. adults are the least likely of those in other developed countries to have a regular physician, place of care or longstanding relationship with a primary care provider. A March 2022 study led by the American Medical Association found $979 million in excess U.S. health spending annually comes from primary care physician turnover, with more than a quarter of that – $260 million – attributable to burnout. Adopting an extended team-based approach to care is step one – enabling PCPs to be leaders of integrated teams that include their own office staff, plus additional virtual team members: care managers and care coordinators, pharmacists, social workers, behavioral health specialists, and others. There are more than 16,000 direct primary care practices in the U.S., and the leading benefits associated with this model include quicker access to appointments, because the PCPs often carry smaller patient panels and lower costs compared with other care-on-demand settings like urgent care or the emergency room.

In a traditional primary care model, you see a PCP, or perhaps a nurse practitioner or physician assistant. Traditional primary care is stifled and strangled by the reactive, volume-based model of fee-for-service. Unlocking the full value of primary care requires a value-based, prospective payment model that incentivizes PCPs and their extended care teams to deliver preventive care and support patients throughout the care journey. PCPs lack access to the data, technologies and support needed to care effectively for patients, maximize their impact on patient health, foster meaningful relationships and ultimately demonstrate the immense value that primary care can have on patients' lives. The shift from this current reality to one where advanced primary care is the norm certainly requires the right digital solutions that can connect, optimize and support everything from practice workflow to patient engagement and chronic condition management. When this occurs – when technology-enabled care teams can relieve clinical and operational burden for physicians – PCPs can care for more people, prioritize a relational model of care delivery and do so in sustainable, scalable ways that can transform the care experience for millions in our country.

When team-based care and digital solutions are used more effectively, primary care will no longer be defined as the time patients spend with their PCP in the exam room, or even on a telehealth call. For patients to view care team members as extensions of their PCP's staff, the PCPs themselves must treat the care team as such – including how the PCP introduces the concept of the extended care team to patients. We've seen team-based care transform the patient experience when PCPs take time to create clear connections for their patients. You would think most if not all physicians would be on board with a shift to a model that would prospectively pay them to take care of patients and help them live healthy lives. And it is all the more reason that we need to continue to push for this – to stoke the fires of belief in a better, more pragmatic system of primary care, to help all stakeholders understand that healthcare can truly and finally prioritize the one thing that's been conspicuously missing in our traditional model: health.