News Release
Primary Care Services Account for a Small Share of Medicare Spending
Apr 15, 2019
Published in: JAMA Internal Medicine (2019). doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.8747
Posted on RAND.org on April 17, 2019
Greater health system orientation toward primary care is associated with higher quality, better outcomes, and lower costs. Recent payment and delivery system reforms emphasize investment in primary care, but resources presently devoted to primary care have not been estimated nationally. In this study, we calculated primary care spending as a proportion of total spending among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries and describe variation by beneficiary characteristics and by state.
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