Washington Health Alliance: All-Alliance Meeting

Washington Health Alliance
All-Alliance Meeting
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
9 am – 11:30 am
Cambia Grove
1800 9th Avenue, Suite 250, Seattle, WA 98101

15% Primary Care Spend: Easy to Say, Hard to Do – Can We Get There?

Despite very high levels of health care spending across the country and in Washington state, the proportion spent on primary care remains low (<10%) and is insufficient to achieve the goals of lower total cost of care, fewer hospitalizations and ER visits, better patient experience and, most importantly, lower mortality. The high cost of health care makes an increase in total health care spending highly undesirable, particularly among those who pay most of the bills – public and private purchasers. So, a shift in current health care spending and resources will be necessary to better support comprehensive, well-coordinated primary care. Easy to say, hard to do. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have recently announced their “Primary Care First” initiative, and other state-led efforts (e.g., Delaware, Rhode Island, and Oregon) are underway to increase the proportion of health care spending for primary care. At our March 2019 All Alliance meeting, Milbank President Chris Koller talked with us about the important role of primary care in making health care more affordable for individuals and purchasers. Mr. Koller suggests that we raise primary care spending by at least one percentage point per year for five years.

At the September 18^th All-Alliance meeting, we’ll host a robust discussion of what it will take to increase relative spending for primary care without increasing total health care spending. To be successful, both government and commercial payers will need to participate. We’ll examine how different special interests in our state think about this and explore potential strategies for getting us there. We have lined up an interesting panel of speakers to consider multiple perspectives on this important topic.

Panelists:

• Nancy Fisher, MD, CMS Region 8, 9 10
• Mary Fliss, Washington State Health Care Authority
• Tim Lieb, Regence Blue Shield
• Sheila Rege, MD, Washington State Medical Association
• Cassie Sauer, Washington State Hospital Association
• Jonathan Sugarman, MD, Washington Academy of Family Physicians
• Jeff White, The Boeing Company

Doors open at 9 am for coffee and networking. The program will begin at 9:30 am.

Space is limited. Please register early to reserve your seat here.

Limited paid parking is available at Cambia Grove (1800 9th Avenue) and Washington Health Alliance (600 Stewart Street).

Limited remote access is available. Register for the webinar here.