Reforming Medicare Primary Care Payment for the Good

The National Academy for Science, Engineering and Medicine’s seminal 2021 report “Implementing High-Quality Primary Care” establishes the importance of moving primary care reimbursement to a hybrid payment approach where a portion of payment is received prospectively on a per-member-per-month basis to resource team-based care.  Three years later, the nation has yet to make substantial progress in implementing a hybrid payment for primary care.  U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Dr. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) are trying to change this by introducing new legislation, the Pay PCPs Act, to reform how primary care gets paid through Medicare.