A new report presents a plan for strengthening primary care in Delaware.
The Office of Value-Based Health Care Delivery’s initial provisional Affordability Standards goal is to strengthen primary care in the state through increased investment.
The plan includes more than double the primary care spending in the commercial fully-insured market by 2025.
Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro explains why it’s time to help primary care physicians.
"Primary care physicians are being squeezed,” he said. “They have seen slight increases over the last several years whereas hospitals and specialty docs have seen significant increases in reimbursement for services."
Navarro says that primary care doctors right now are spending too much time not caring for patients.
"Primary care doctors are aging, they're frustrated, they spend a lot of time dealing with insurance companies instead of caring for patients,” he said. “Then they're sadly forced to,because of the model, this sort of fee for service model, crank out people one after another after another after another, and that's not the best for patients or the docs."
Navarro notes primary care doctors getting less from insurance companies has led many to go to concierge service, which has led to higher costs for consumers.
Navarro explains how primary care doctors will be helped.
"We're transitioning from fee to service to value-based healthcare,” he said. “We're working with our insurers to make it happen and it's something that we're pretty excited about here in the state of Delaware."
The public can comment on the report until January 25th and can be found on the Insurance Department’s website.
