April Senate Finance Committee Hearing Features Primary Care

Primary care played a starring role in a bipartisan April 11th Senate Finance Committee hearing, Bolstering Chronic Care through Medicare Physician Payment, led by Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ranking Member MIke Crapo (R-ID).

With PCC members and team in attendance, Chairman Wyden responded directly to a recommendation from hearing witness Amol Navathe, MD, PhD that Congress create a path to scaling hybrid primary care payment, saying, “I like that idea very much.” Dr. Navathe is a physician and Professor at the Unversity of Pennsylvania.

Over the past year, PCC and its Better Health – NOW Campaign championed a hybrid payment option with CMS – now reflected in the new ACO PC Flex Model available next year to up 130 Medicare ACOs.  But Congress has a crucial role to play as well.

Earlier this spring, Better Health – NOW  argued  that “primary care is a primary solution to address chronic physical and mental health conditions and the increasingly unaffordable costs they generate,” in submitted testimony to the Senate Budget Committee. The Campaign will be submitting additional recommendations to the Senate Finance Committee later this week.

“The first place to start is to invest more in primary care.” argued Navathe.