COVID-19 Timeline: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Changes and Primary Care Support Were Not Enough to Prevent Practice Losses

The Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic reaches back months on American soil and even farther globally. Though the far-reaching effects were unknown at the outset, many scholars correctly predicted that the US health care system was not prepared to effectively handle a pandemic of this magnitude. Although the focus of the shortcomings of our health care system has been on lack of personal protective equipment and intensive care unit capacity, the lack of support for primary care has been devastating. A primary care collaborative survey released in March showed 52% of primary care providers reporting severe or close to severe financial effects on their practices due to COVID-19. One week later results from the same survey reported 76% with severe or close to severe financial effects on their practices. Modeling analysts predict that this financial impact could lead to primary care shortages nationwide. Although the reasons for this financial impact are multifactorial and cannot be blamed on any single entity, we sought to understand how the timeline of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) policy changes may have impacted primary care practices in the United States.

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