Young people, people of color, males, and those living in the South are less likely to have primary care access.
Fewer patients than ever before have an established primary care provider, putting at risk population health, chronic disease management, and overall patient wellness, according to a group of researchers from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Access to primary care is an essential building block of patient health, with study authors explaining that individuals who lack primary care see shorter lifespans and lower patient satisfaction with their healthcare.
“Primary care is the thread that runs through the fabric of all health care, and this study demonstrates we are potentially slowly unweaving that fabric,” David Levine, Harvard Medical School instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a statement. “America is already behind the curve when it comes to primary care; this shows we are moving in the wrong direction.”
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
Levine also practices internal medicine and primary care at Brigham and Women’s.
In an analysis of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data from between 2002 and 2015, the researchers found a 2 percent difference in the number of adult patients who have an established primary care provider.
In 2002, 77 percent of patients said they had a primary care provider. By 2015, that number shrank to 75 percent, a drop that represents millions of Americans who do not have access to primary care.
This drop in primary care provider access has been seen in patients across nearly all age demographics, including individuals in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. When looking at all patients without any health complications, the researchers observed decreases in primary care provider access in all age brackets up to individuals in their 60s.
The study also noted health disparities along gender and racial lines, as well as across various geographies. Males were more likely than females to lack a primary care provider. Additionally, adult patients who identified as black, Latino, or Asian were less likely to have a primary care provider compared to their white peers.
Those living in the South were less likely to have a primary care provider than those living in other parts of the United States.
Healthcare policies that address the dwindling level of primary care provider access will be essential to meet industry goals for better care quality, lower costs, and higher patient satisfaction levels, the study authors said. Better support for primary care access will make a more efficient healthcare industry, they noted, while cutting unnecessary spending.
Specifically, policymakers must focus on reforming the primary care specialty. Creating payment models that reflect the difficult work primary care providers do – including care coordination and addressing of certain specialty medical concerns at the point of care – will be essential. Additionally, reform should target the technological investments that have come to define the healthcare and primary care fields.
Furthermore, healthcare policies could support convenient care options in primary care. Reforms that expand access to telehealth reimbursement in the primary care setting would make it easier for patients to access primary care and thus ideally prompt more patients to make a connection with a primary care provider.
Policies that facilitate better patient-provider communication and interactions could also help in this area.
Finally, creating incentive programs for more new physicians to specialize in primary care, especially in rural regions, and expanding access to comprehensive health insurance could expand access to primary care.
Ultimately, boosting patient access to primary care is going to require a concerted effort from across the medical industry. Supporting primary care as the bedrock of patient health and recognizing the core role it plays in overall wellness will ideally help to boost the number of patients seen in a primary care setting.
“We know that primary care is associated with better health, yet fewer Americans have primary care than ever before,” said senior author Bruce Landon, professor of health care policy in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and HMS professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he practices internal medicine. “To improve Americans’ health, we should prioritize investments to reinvigorate the American primary care system.”
Source: Patient Engagement Hit