Regional and Racial Variation in Primary Care and the Quality of Care among Medicare Beneficiaries

With the passage of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the nation has a remarkable opportunity to widen access to health care while also improving quality and affordability. Several provisions in the legislation are aimed at improving primary care, which is considered a crucial step towards creating a high-functioning, effective health care delivery system. But simply increasing access to primary care may not be enough to realize improvements in the quality of care or in health outcomes. As this Dartmouth Atlas report shows, neither a greater supply of primary care physicians in an area nor a regular visit to a primary care clinician is, by itself, a guarantee that a patient will get recommended care or experience better outcomes. This report also shows that increasing access to primary care may not be enough to overcome racial disparities in quality and outcomes. Achieving the benefits of primary care is likely to require both improving the services provided by primary care clinicians and more effective integration and coordination with other providers.