Financing Primary Care During COVID
Recorded on Feb. 24, 2021

Primary care delivery has been dramatically altered by COVID-19, worldwide. Primary care in-person visits were nearly eliminated in most countries during shelter-in-place periods, with variable movement to telemedicine, and variable abilities of patients to engage in virtual care. This series covered relevant topics in today's primary care landscape. 

Video coming soon.

Panelists

Chris Koller, MA

Chris KollerChristopher Koller, MA is president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, a 114-year operating foundation that improves population health by connecting leaders with the best information and experience. Before joining the Fund, he served the State of Rhode Island as the country’s first health insurance commissioner, an appointment he held between 2005 and 2013. Under Mr. Koller’s leadership, the Rhode Island Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner was nationally recognized for its rate review process and its efforts to use insurance regulation to promote payment reform, primary care revitalization, and delivery system transformation. The office was also one of the lead agencies in implementing the Affordable Care Act in Rhode Island. Prior to serving as health insurance commissioner, Mr. Koller was the CEO of Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island for nine years. In this role, he was the founding chair of the Association of Community Affiliated Plans.

Aaron Baum, PhD

Aaron BaumAaron Baum, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Health System Design and Global Health and an Economist at the Arnold Institute for Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His research uses methods from empirical economics and statistics to evaluate and personalize the targeting of health services and policies. He has a PhD from Columbia University, where he studied health and development economics, and a BS in mathematics from the University of Chicago. He has a primary appointment in the Department of Health System Design and Global Health at Mount Sinai and a secondary appointment in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. He is also affiliated with the Veterans Health Administration (New York Harbor), the Department of Medicine at Stanford University, and the Harvard Center for Primary Care.

Lauren Block, MD, MPH

Lauren BlockLauren Block, MD, MPH is an associate professor of medicine and science education at Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Hempstead, NY. Her research interests include trainee wellness, interprofessional education, and curriculum development. She sees patients in primary care, precepts residents, and teaches epidemiology, communication, physical diagnosis, and clinical reasoning at the Zucker School of Medicine. Dr. Block received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and received an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Bruce Landon, MD, MBA

Bruce LandonBruce E. Landon, MD, MBA, is Professor of Health Care Policy and Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He practices internal medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Dr. Landon’s primary research interest has been assessing the impact of different characteristics of physicians and health care organizations, ranging from health plans to physician group practices, on the provision of health care services. He has over fifteen years of experience in health services research and has been the principal investigator of numerous Federal and foundation grants. He is currently studying the quality of care and utilization patterns in Medicare’s managed care program (Medicare Advantage) and using methods from network science to study networks of physicians based on patient sharing. He also has an active research program investigating the comparative effectiveness of various vascular surgery procedures.

Moderator

Russ Phillips, MD

Russ PhillipsRussell S. Phillips is Director of the Center for Primary Care and the William Applebaum Professor of Medicine and Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a general internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he provides primary care in Healthcare Associates, a large teaching practice. He has been a leader in innovation in practice and payment in primary care, implementing new care models for patients with chronic illness and, using micro-simulation, testing the impact of global payment on value. He has served on a Massachusetts Health Quality Partners Advisory Group on the future of primary care. In Massachusetts, he is advocating for access to primary care, global payment for primary care, and financial support for small, independent practices threatened by the financial strain imposed by COVID-19. He is a leader in oral health integration into primary care and served on a Patient-Centered Collaborative Advisory Committee on Oral Health Integration and is Co-Principal Investigator on a related HRSA-funded Academic Unit. Dr. Phillips has expertise in the evaluation of innovations in care, systems improvement, patient safety, and quality of care and is a member of the Center's care integration study team.

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