‘Better Health — Now’ Aims to Help Patients Benefit from More Community-Based Primary Care

WASHINGTON, March 29, 2022 – The Primary Care Collaborative (PCC), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing an effective and efficient health system built on a strong foundation of primary care, today launched the Better Health – Now campaign. This initiative aims to pivot health care to community-based primary care that furthers better health. A majority (34) of the PCC’s diverse member organizations have signed on to the campaign, with others expected.  

Campaign participants believe there is nothing more important to individuals than their health. Many Americans rely on a primary care professional to partner with them and their families on the path to healthier, more fulfilling lives. The campaign’s supporters believe the U.S. needs strong primary care in every community so all Americans have better access to health. Better Health – Now presents a way to make this vision a reality.

The PCC kicked off this multi-year campaign in an online event at which leaders of the PCC and the broader primary care community spoke about primary care from various perspectives.  These included:  

• Asaf Bitton, Ariadne Labs
• Mark Del Monte, American Academy of Pediatrics
• Rebecca Etz, Larry A. Green Center
• Emily M. Godfrey, University of Washington clinics, Seattle
• Ann Greiner, Primary Care Collaborative
• Arturo Martinez-Guijosa, patient advocate, Seattle

The PCC expects to announce its support of specific legislation or regulations later in the campaign. For several years, PCC has championed integration of mental health care and primary care, which is one area within whole-person health that PCC may consider for supporting new policies.

“The PCC has a successful track record of bringing diverse stakeholders together around policies that benefit patients,” said Mark Del Monte, JD, CEO/Executive Vice President of the American Academy of Pediatrics and chair of PCC’s Board of Directors. “We stand 40-plus organizations strong today—and counting. And we speak with one voice about how to reimagine and rebuild primary care to help meet the pressing physical, mental and social needs of Americans.” 

“The upheaval of the last two years urges us to make a major transformation in how we pay for and provide primary care in the U.S.,” said Ann Greiner, MCP, PCC’s President & CEO. “The time is ripe to bring access to communities that have been left behind and to provide whole-person care so that the needs of patients can be addressed more comprehensively.”

This month the country marked two years of the COVID-19 public health emergency, which hit many communities hard. The campaign asserts that families and individuals in every community need access to primary care that works for them to recover from the pandemic and thrive. During the pandemic, primary care was there for patients—quickly offering telehealth, expanding its services and staffing vaccine clinics. The campaign aims to increase support for primary care so it can better support patients in getting and staying healthier.

“This campaign urges federal and state policymakers to take action on longstanding health inequities that the COVID-19 pandemic intensified by investing in primary care,” said Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, JD, Vice President for Health Justice, National Partnership for Women and Families, and a PCC board member. “Primary care is the indispensable foundation of a better, more equitable healthcare system that ensures that every single person in our country has the opportunity to live a healthy life.”

The campaign will be calling on policymakers and decision makers to:

• Invest in what works: primary care
• Pivot government and private insurance to join us in this effort
• Offer more healthcare options in communities (rural, urban, diverse)

At the launch the PCC also publicly announced the organizations—members of the PCC and several others—that have joined the campaign as signatories to a set of principles laid out in PCC’s Concordance Recommendations for Primary Care Payment and Investment. The recommendations that will serve as the guiding principles of the campaign are derived from a landmark 2021 report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Implementing High-Quality Primary Care.

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Ann Greiner, PCC’s President and CEO, is available for interviews, as are other speakers. To arrange an interview contact:

Allison Clark
PCC Office Manager and Executive Assistant to the President and CEO
aclark@thepcc.org
202-417-2076