Managed Health Care Connect August, 2019
Between 2010 and 2017, the number of primary care physicians treating Medicare beneficiaries grew by 13%. During this same time, the ratio of primary care providers to beneficiaries dropped slightly from 3.8 per 1000 to 3.5 per 1000. It is this drop, described as “modest” in the June report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to Congress that foreshadows a concern for Medicare and private insurers alike—the decreasing number of primary care providers in a health care delivery system that relies on these frontline workers to deliver accessible, affordable, and high quality care.
For Medicare, this decreasing ratio between primary care provider and beneficiary is of particular concern given the rapidly increasing number of baby boomers transitioning into Medicare.
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