Primary Care As A Share Of Total Medical Spending: Implications For Cost Containment & Specialty Care

Current reform models are structured around coordinated care with primary care at the heart of the service delivery model (think ACOs and such care management constructs as Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organizations). Data on spending on primary care—even when defined fairly narrowly as spending on internal medicine, family practice, and other preventive and basic health services—is not readily available. The data that does exist,   however, indicates that spending on primary care accounts for only around six percent of total medical spending. Rhode Island provides an interesting example of the impact of efforts to increase spending on primary care . . .