Integrated care functions as a treatment and prevention strategy, where healthy behaviors are established well before they turn into complex, expensive chronic conditions. More

This report offers community health centers, their partners, policymakers, and others a place to start in addressing challenges to implementing value-based payment models, particularly as the safety net faces potential cuts in federal funding for Medicaid. More

To inform state-level primary care payment policies, we reviewed recent policies advancing primary care payment reform in the commercial sector and conducted interviews with 50 stakeholders in five pioneering states: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Washington. More

This brief identifies beliefs and common practices in health care culture that the authors suggest have hindered the spread of these models, as well as opportunities for the policymakers and influencers, payers, and clinicians to support whole-person health. More

This series of profiles highlights five states that are in different stages of enacting and implementing primary care spending targets, including early planning and coalition building; active efforts to engage state policymakers; and implementation or revision of an enacted state policy. More

This 2025 Primary Care Scorecard spotlights the downward cycle of financing for primary care, describing how persistent challenges in primary care arise from insufficient investment (or in the case of training, misplaced investment) and a fee-for-service (FFS) payment model that rewards volume rather than continuous, whole-person care. This report highlights how these systemic financial issues not only undermine the effectiveness of primary care delivery but, more importantly, jeopardize the overall health of our communities in the following ways. More

This report describes the experiences of states that have designed and implemented policies to pursue these multiple targets and gathers lessons from their experiences to inform future policy development. Interviews with state officials and a multi-state convening revealed the strategies states used to establish their targets and their experiences implementing them. Officials described challenges to implementation and efforts to overcome them. More

The Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ) has released applications for funding up to 15 state-based health extension cooperatives, a key component of AHRQ’s newly launched Healthcare Extension Service.  More

The authors offer guidelines on designing successful value-based payment contracts for FQHCs and recommend action steps for CMS, state Medicaid agencies, and FQHCs that will enable more of these safety-net providers to participate in value-based care — and realize savings as well as improved quality for patients. More

“If this is love I want my money back” – Hot Tuna  This sentiment may well capture the mood in US primary care today. The 2021 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report on primary care described the urgent need to adopt an updated vision and roadmap to improve primary care in the […] More