Source: Milbank Memorial Fund
The second national Primary Care Scorecard released on February 28 reveals an intensifying primary care crisis and identifies five reasons why access to affordable, quality primary care services is expected to get worse.
Developed by Yalda Jabbarpour and colleagues at the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Robert Graham Center and co-funded by the Milbank Memorial Fund and The Physicians Foundation, The Health of U.S. Primary Care: 2024 Scorecard report and data dashboard examine critical measures of primary care performance nationally and across states.
- A struggle to meet population needs: Despite the increase in chronic disease and mental health burdens, the share of all clinicians practicing primary care (including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants) stagnated around 28% between 2016 and 2021.
- Workforce exodus: In 2021, 37% of all physicians in training specialized in primary care, yet only 15% of all physicians were practicing primary care three to five years after residency. The remainder subspecialized or practice as hospitalists and do not work in community settings.
- Chronic underinvestment: Despite the diminishing supply of primary care physicians and growing demand, the share of total U.S. healthcare spending devoted to primary care stayed under 6% from 2012 to 2021.
- Technology has become a burden to primary care. Data limited to family physicians demonstrate that healthcare technologies do not serve primary care physicians adequately; more than 40% of family physicians report unfavorable scores in electronic heath record (EHR) usability, and over 25% report overall dissatisfaction with their EHR.
- Primary care research to identify, implement, and track novel care delivery and payment solutions is lacking. Since 2017, only around 0.3% of federal research funding (administered through the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, for example) per year has been invested in primary care research, limiting new information on primary care systems, payment and delivery models, and quality.
Read the Executive Summary and full report for additional information.