Primary Care Transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic poses grave threats to our country’s fragile primary care system. In a new blog post co-published with the United Hospital Fund (UHF), Milbank Memorial Fund President Christopher F. Koller and UHF President Anthony Shih, MD, point out that commercial insurers in many places can do more to protect primary care’s viability. More

The authors make the case for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to implement risk-adjusted, prospective primary care payments now for all practices to meet better people’s needs—for the current COVID-19 crisis, for routine care, and for future crises yet unknown.  More

In January, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont issued an executive order that requires the state to develop an annual health care cost growth benchmark,… More

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate the US reversed a three-year decline in life expectancy in 2018, thanks to gains made in combatting opioid misuse deaths and improved cancer treatment. But in his latest “View from Here,” Milbank Memorial Fund President Christopher Koller writes that the 2018 number is still below where we were in 2014 and is part of plateauing that began in 2011. More

Applications are now open to primary care practices and payers that want to participate in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation’s latest and most ambitious multipayer primary care transformation initiative, Primary Care First (PCF). Milbank Memorial Fund Program Officer Lisa Dulsky Watkins outlines the risks, responsibilities, and rewards for practices and payers, including Medicaid, that choose to participate in the five-year program. More

In a new “Milbank Quarterly” guest opinion, Delaware’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kara Odom Walker says that any solution that lowers health care costs and improves quality will require a foundation of enhanced primary care. More

Evan Saulino, MD, has implemented quality improvement efforts on the frontline and contributed to policy development at the state and national level. In a new Milbank blog post, Saulino assesses the progress made over the last 20 years, and some of the communication and other gaps that continue to exist between health care payers and providers. More

Cruise down the East River in Manhattan and you may notice that the newest, largest, and most expensive high rises along the water belong to the medical-industrial complex, says Christopher F. Koller in his latest “View from Here” blog post. All over the US, in fact, many hospital administrators have become real estate moguls. More