The U.S. significantly under-invests in primary care, even though the benefits of primary care access are well known. Several states are now using their health insurance rate review authority to push insurers to increase their investment. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona and Sabrina Corlette review these states’ strategies and their impact to date.
In a new case study, published in collaboration with the Milbank Memorial Fund, CHIR researchers examined stakeholder efforts to improve primary care access in Kanawha County, West Virginia—an area designated as a primary care health professional shortage area for low-income residents.
Primary care is a critical tool to prevent illness and death and improve equitable distribution of health care. In a new case study, published in collaboration with the Milbank Memorial Fund, CHIR researchers detail stakeholder efforts to expand primary care access in Columbia County, Arkansas—a county classified as a primary care health professional shortage area.
In a new report published in collaboration with the Milbank Memorial Fund, CHIR researchers examined policy interventions to expand primary care access in rural Grant County, New Mexico. The authors evaluated stakeholder efforts to increase the number of primary clinicians, bring outpatient clinics to the community, make primary care affordable, and build relationships between providers and patients.
It is hard to overstate the importance of primary care in ensuring robust health outcomes at the population level. In a new report supported by the National Institute for Health Care Reform, CHIR experts reviewed research to assess whether policy initiatives targeting primary care access have been effective in reducing health care disparities.
In CHIRblog’s February installment of What We’re Reading, CHIR’s Olivia Hoppe digs into new research that highlights the consequences of the recent short-term limited-duration health plan rule, the effects of expanded private insurance on access to primary and specialty care, the impact of the ACA’s dependent coverage provision on birth and prenatal outcomes, and an assessment of state-level efforts to expand access, affordability, and quality of coverage.
For decades, elite “concierge” practices have been providing easy access to primary care in return for several thousand dollars in retainer fees. Recently we’ve seen the emergence of more affordable versions of this arrangement, with monthly fees that cost far less than the average ACA marketplace plan premium. At first blush, these arrangements, frequently called “direct primary care arrangements” (DPCAs), might seem like a way to ensure access to health care services in the face of rising health insurance premiums. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona explains why this is not always the case.
Sixty million people in the U.S. lack access to primary care services, partly due to a shortage of primary care physicians. Many states are responding to the crisis by expanding the scope of practice of non-MD health professionals, such as nurse practitioners. But insurers’ payment policies and resistance from the medical establishment often limit the effectiveness of those policy changes. CHIR’s legal intern Emma Chapman digs into the current debate.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual blog post authors and do not represent the views of Georgetown University, the Center on Health Insurance Reforms, any organization that the author is affiliated with, or the opinions of any other author who publishes on this blog.
