Michael Weiss, DO, vice president of population health for Rady Children’s Health in Orange County, Calif., told Becker’s that advanced primary care is one of the biggest growth opportunities in the U.S. healthcare industry this year.
“It’s not rocket science,” Dr. Weiss said. “Instead of investing in more CTs and more invasive [healthcare services] that may or may not necessarily show value, let’s invest in what we know does show value.”
One example of a value-add opportunity is expanding advanced primary care, according to Dr. Weiss.
Advanced primary care is a healthcare model that offers increased access to care, such as 24/7 digital care, same-day appointments, integration between primary care and behavioral health, coordination across healthcare settings and specialists, medication management and chronic care management. The team-based model financially incentivizes healthcare workers to prioritize patient outcomes over volume of services.
Research has found an association between aspects of advanced primary care with lower healthcare costs and improved outcomes, including fewer hospitalizations.
Dr. Weiss said increased adoption of advanced primary care could fix time constraints in traditional primary care, as well as improve the quality of referrals to specialists. In pediatrics, for example, pediatricians often do not have time to fulfill all of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations for each visit.
Because there is typically not enough time in a 30-minute visit to conduct a thorough evaluation, physicians are increasingly referring lower-acuity cases to specialists, which burdens that workforce, according to Dr. Weiss.
For instance, assessing children with a short stature for their age could include blood tests and bone age assessment, but if a pediatrician does not have time for those tests, they might refer patients to an endocrinologist to save time. However, if the pediatrician has a smaller panel size — a component of advanced primary care models — capacity is created for both primary care physicians and specialists.
“So you have this double-edged sword of, ‘Primary care should do more, but they don’t have time; [while] specialty gets hammered with things that are not as important,'” Dr. Weiss said. “Advanced primary care really is seen as somewhat of a solution for that. What that means is that you’re now changing the paradigm of rewarding primary care doctors to do more.”
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