News: Primary care practices take $15 billion hit from COVID-19 response

Because of declines in office visits during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, primary care practices are estimated to lose roughly $15 billion, according to a study performed by Harvard Medical School and American Board of Family Medicine researchers published in Health Affairs.

According to the study, primary care practice visit volumes hit their record lows between March and April of 2020 with all visits down 58% and in-person visits down 69%. These volume declines are estimated to cost the practices more than $65,000 in total revenue for each full-time physician, totaling $15 billion nationally.

The study noted that these monetary losses can increase even more if the United States has to implement additional stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders, or if payers need to revert to lower telehealth reimbursement rates seen earlier in the pandemic.

Editor’s note: The Health Affairs published study can be found here. For more ACDIS articles relating to outpatient CDI, click here. To read ACDIS’ coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, click here.