To lower overall health care spending, spend more on primary care, a new report argues

If you want to avoid hospitalization or major medical bills, one of the most effective moves is to go see a doctor before something becomes a major health issue. That’s what primary care doctors are for — annual checkups, vaccines, antibiotics for that low-grade fever that just won’t go away.

A new report calculated just how big a difference primary care access can make: If you’re an adult with a chronic disease, having a go-to primary care doctor cuts your health care costs in half, according to the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Primary Care. It also lowers your chance of getting hospitalized by 20%. 

“Then for children with chronic disease, the benefits are even more striking,” said Dr. Morgan McDonald, the national director for population health at Milbank Memorial Fund, which co-funded the report.

She said one in three adults in the U.S. can’t get primary care.

“Lack of insurance can be a significant barrier. Cost can be a barrier,” McDonald said.

Another barrier? Only 5% of U.S. health care spending goes toward primary care.

“We have moved more and more physicians into specialty care, so we only see them when we have something specifically wrong,” said wealth finance professor emeritus J.B. Silvers at Case Western Reserve University.

He said medical school pushes students toward picking specialties: rheumatology, dermatology, oncology, that kind of thing.

“You make a lot more money as a specialist than you do as a primary care doc,” Silvers said.

That’s why the report says the answer is increasing spending on the primary care workforce. More money means more primary care doctors, which means more health problems solved before they get really expensive.