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Primary Care Coalition Launches
‘PRIMARY CARE STATISTIC OF THE DAY’ CAMPAIGN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Stefan Friedman (212) 561-8730, Ext. 223

(ALBANY): With precious few days left before New York State passes its 2009-2010 budget, the Primary Care Coalition today launched its “Primary Care Statistic of the Day” campaign illustrating the major benefits that would come from a robust primary care system.

“While certain elements of Governor Paterson’s healthcare budget have sparked a lot of controversy, there is widespread agreement that New York needs to invest more in primary care,” The Primary Care Coalition said in a statement. “Our goal of the ‘Statistic of the Day’ campaign is simple – to highlight the many benefits that patients, providers and the State’s bottom line would begin to enjoy if we made primary care the priority it needs to be.”

Each day until April 1, the coalition will release a single statistic that highlights one of three major benefits of a robust primary care system – lower costs, improved health outcomes and reduced health disparities.

Statistic of the Day for March 16:

American adults who have a personal primary care physician incurred 33% lower costs in health care.*

“When you have a personal physician, you spend less on health care, but 5 million people in New York State don’t have access to primary care,” Elizabeth Swain, the CEO of the Community Health Care Association of New York State and a Founding Partner of the Primary Care Coalition said. “We need to attract more primary care physicians by paying them what they deserve, incentivizing primary care, and letting them work with patients instead of paperwork. That’s how we will reign in out of control health care costs.”

* Source: "Contribution of Primary Care to Health Systems and Health," Barbara Starfield of Johns Hopkins University, September 2005, The Milbank Quarterly.