The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) applauds Delaware’s Primary Care Reform Collaborative (Collaborative) for its recommendations to invest more in primary care to meet the medical, behavioral, and social determinants of health of Delaware’s diverse patient population. These recommendations, if adopted, have the potential to help transform the health care system in Delaware and enhance value.
- Delaware should incrementally increase primary care spending to eventually account for 12% of total health care spending.
- The increase in primary care spending should include an upfront investment in infrastructure, increase the use of health information technology, support team-based care, and grow value-based incentive payments.
- This mandate does not call for an increase in Delaware’s total health care spending and thus may result in constraints on increases for other health care costs.
- Enforcement will occur through legislative statute or a regulatory enforcement authority, either in a new or existing agency.
- The Collaborative will continue to work with stakeholders to enhance participation in value-based payment models, further initiatives to increase and sustain primary care workforce, and integrate Women’s Health and Behavioral Health within a primary care team model.
“The Collaborative’s recommendations underscore Delaware’s leadership in strengthening primary care,” said Ann Greiner, president and chief executive officer of the PCPCC. “Research shows that advanced primary care reduces unnecessary specialist referrals, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits with better health outcomes for patients.”
“We know to improve health care in Delaware we must improve our system of primary care,” said Kara Odom Walker, MD, MPH, cabinet secretary for the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services. “In order to strengthen our primary care workforce, we must invest in that care and find ways to incentivize front-line providers to perform as coordinated teams that are ultimately accountable for population health.”
The Collaborative consists of diverse state leaders and aims to develop annual recommendations to strengthen primary care in Delaware by collecting input from stakeholders in both the health care and patient communities, as well as from other model states. The Collaborative was created in August 2018 after Governor John Carney, Jr., signed into law Senate Bill 227, legislation designed to strengthen primary care services and payment.