PRACTICE MANAGEMENT By Brent Hazelett, MPA, CAE NCAFP Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Could COVID Be the Positive Tipping Point for Primary Care? For years we have all been patiently waiting while the world has been telling us that the move to value was coming like a freight train and we better all get on board or get run over. It appears all it might have taken is a pandemic and the worst economic downturn in our lifetime. Both private and public payers are scrambling to implement changes seemingly overnight that normally would take years. NCAFP leaders have been in countless conversations with payers, both during this pandemic and before, and these conversations are resulting in a better understanding of just how much damage this healthcare system has done to primary care, which has only been exacerbated during this pandemic. There is no doubt that practices relying on fee-for-service revenue during COVID have been hurt the most, while those with substantive value-based care contracts in place have fared much better. Our goal as an Academy continues to be to provide our members with the resources they need to not just survive but thrive in today’s healthcare environment. Our work on your behalf continues and we are buoyed by ongoing changes in the marketplace that are increasingly recognizing the immense value family medicine plays in reducing cost and increasing quality. Telemedicine, long underpaid (when paid at all) is finally being recognized as a viable means of effectively providing primary care in certain circumstances. No 24
The North Carolina Family Physician
