WASHINGTON– The American Academy of Family Physicians is launching a 5-year strategic effort to help convince payers and policy makers to place a higher value on primary care and that getting back to basics is the way to achieve better health, better care, and lower costs.
Family physicians are best-positioned to deliver on that promise, known as the Triple Aim, said Dr. Glen Stream, in announcing the new campaign at the AAFP Scientific Assembly Oct. 23.
Alicia Ault/Frontline Medical News
Dr. Glen Stream and Dr. Donald Berwick at AAFP campaign launch.
“We believe the solution to many – if not all – of our health care problems can be found in primary care,” said Dr. Stream, a past board chairman of AAFP, in a statement.
Dr. Stream is the chairman of the board of directors of Family Medicine for America’s Health, an organization that will tackle the work of “modernizing the family medicine specialty.” The group will focus on expanding access to the patient-centered medical home, building up the primary care workforce, and shifting from fee for service to a more comprehensive primary care payment model, Dr. Stream said.
One issue the campaign will work on: Advocating for the creation of primary care–specific evaluation and management codes.
“If you had a primary care code that was specifically designed to recognize the intensity and complexity of modern primary care practice and valued it accordingly, then you could change payment for primary care services,” said Dr. Stream, in an interview.
The campaign won’t focus only on physician income, but on “how do you have adequate payment into a medical home system that covers all of the services that patients need and deserve?”
The campaign will also focus on technology. There will be efforts to speak with one voice about improving electronic medical records systems. But the technology work group – one of six on the campaign – will more specifically look at ensuring that new inventions, whether they be at the bedside or on a smartphone – are effective in actually connecting physicians and patients and improve health outcomes.