New England States Issue Regional PC Spend Report

A consortium of New England States, known as NESCSO, recently released a first-of-its-kind regional report on levels of primary care investment across six states. The analysis, based on administrative claims data for 7.2 million commercial, Medicaid and Medicare members across Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, found that spending on primary care averaged 5.5% of overall healthcare costs. (Retail pharmacy is excluded from the denominator.) The data are largely in line with other studies of primary care spending levels, including PCC’s 2019 and 2020 evidence-based reports. Still, the NESCSO effort newly coordinates states to report on standard measures of primary care to allow for comparisons and regional benchmarking. It also attempts to capture non-fee-for-service spending, such as capitated payments and other investments, collected by states directly from payers.