Six ways Congress can make health care affordable for doctors and patients

Primary care spending lowers overall health care costs 

Currently, the United States devotes only about 5% to 7% of total health care spending to primary care. This isn’t nearly enough. We know that health systems with more primary care investment spend less on health care overall while achieving better population health and relying less on hospitals and emergency rooms. 

Our system makes health care too expensive for patients—much more expensive than it should be. Too many patients try to cope by delaying care and skipping medications, which only leads to more serious health problems by the time they do seek help. 

At the same time, family physicians are facing payment instability, unrelenting administrative burdens and problems from consolidation that make it difficult to maintain thriving practices. 

I submitted detailed written advice for lowering overall health care costs in advance of the hearing. It outlines specific strategies to fix Medicare physician payment, expand site-neutral payments, reduce administrative burdens like prior authorization, improve insurance design and transparency and lower cost barriers so you can help your patients access the primary care they need. 

How Congress can make health care affordable 

But with only five minutes in front of the microphone in the hearing room, I simplified it as the six most urgent things family physicians need from legislators: 

1. Double the nation’s financial investment in primary care and the primary care workforce. 
2. Reform Medicare physician payment to value the actual care you deliver to patients, rather than overvaluing health care facilities. 
3. Establish a regulatory framework that supports independent physician-led payment models like direct primary care. 
4. Create space to allow physicians to focus on patients by reducing administrative complexity. 
5. Remove financial barriers to accessing primary care. 
6. Promote proven, evidence-based interventions like vaccines. 

Speak Out for family medicine 

My testimony to Capitol Hill on health care affordability was just the latest example of the AAFP’s advocacy to advance policies that improve the nation’s health, drive down patients’ costs and support you in thriving, fulfilling practices. 

Add your voice today to a Speak Out as together we call for a better health care system that’s centered on primary care.