{"id":49241,"date":"2026-01-14T10:55:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/?post_type=podcast&#038;p=49241"},"modified":"2026-01-20T13:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:31:07","slug":"whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s New and What\u2019s Next for Primary Care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This episode of Quality Matters examines primary care\u2019s evolving role, and features<i> <\/i>Karen Johnson of the American Academy of Family Physicians and Jeff Sitko of NCQA.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Karen and Jeff outline primary care\u2019s distinguishing focus on patient relationships, the strain on the primary care workforce and technology\u2019s promise to ease burdens. The discussion connects the dots between workforce sustainability, AI-driven efficiency, payment reform and NCQA\u2019s vision for next-generation primary care.<\/p>\n<p>Karen highlights the underappreciated fact that only 5% of healthcare spending goes to primary care, despite public perception that the figure is or should be higher. Jeff describes a dawning era of proactive, data-driven care delivery. He also previews NCQA\u2019s plans to build upon the successful Patient-Centered Medical Home model of primary care.<\/p>\n<p><b>Highlights<\/b><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-left: 20px;\">\n<li><b>The Human Core of Primary Care: <\/b>Continuity and trust are what make primary care special, even as practice settings change.<\/li>\n<li><b>Workforce Challenges and Opportunities:<\/b> Clinicians report high stress and burnout, yet relationships with patients keep them engaged. Building systems that protect these relationships\u2014and make primary care careers attractive\u2014is critical to sustainability.<\/li>\n<li><b>Economics and Incentives:<\/b> Guests discuss new payment models, state-level initiatives and federal efforts to rebalance incentives and resource primary care appropriately.<\/li>\n<li><b>Looking Ahead:<\/b> The foundational Patient-Centered Medical Home model gets an update in 2026. Plus, Karen calls for a seismic shift to treat primary care as a common good.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This episode is essential listening for healthcare executives, policymakers and clinicians committed to strengthening primary care as the foundation of quality improvement.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 2rem; border-left: solid 4px gold; max-width: 600px; margin-top: 2rem; margin-bottom: 2rem;\">If you want to boil it down to the simplest terms, it&#8217;s taking primary care from a reactive model\u2014Call me when you&#8217;re sick; I&#8217;ll put you on my schedule; Come in and see me\u2014to a proactive model.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I am paying attention to a population of patients. They&#8217;re mine. They&#8217;re on my panel. And now maybe they&#8217;re also tied to some accountability arrangement in value-based care where performance comes into play.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And so I&#8217;m going to be proactive for a lot of reasons. One, it&#8217;s the right thing to do for patients. But I also want to make sure my patients are getting preventive services they need, they are taking the medications I prescribe, they are going to the referral I recommended. And I&#8217;m getting the information back from that physician, and my team is acting on that. It&#8217;s all of those things that should be ubiquitous in primary care.<div style=\"background-color: #ddd; height: 1px; margin: 1rem auto;\"><\/div><div style=\"font-weight: 700;\">Karen Johnson, PhD<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":49246,"template":"","categories":[1696],"podcast-miniserie":[],"topic":[1842,1715],"class_list":["post-49241","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","topic-ai","topic-digital-quality-measurement"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What\u2019s New and What\u2019s Next for Primary Care - NCQA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This episode of Quality Matters examines primary care\u2019s evolving role, and features Karen Johnson of the American Academy of Family Physicians and Jeff Sitko of NCQA.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What\u2019s New and What\u2019s Next for Primary Care - NCQA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This episode of Quality Matters examines primary care\u2019s evolving role, and features Karen Johnson of the American Academy of Family Physicians and Jeff Sitko of NCQA.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"NCQA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NCQA.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-20T18:31:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/CQA035_Karen-Johnson_Website-Thumbnail_v1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"382\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"294\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@NCQA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/\",\"name\":\"What\u2019s New and What\u2019s Next for Primary Care - NCQA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/CQA035_Karen-Johnson_Website-Thumbnail_v1.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-14T15:55:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-20T18:31:07+00:00\",\"description\":\"This episode of Quality Matters examines primary care\u2019s evolving role, and features Karen Johnson of the American Academy of Family Physicians and Jeff Sitko of NCQA.\u00a0\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/CQA035_Karen-Johnson_Website-Thumbnail_v1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/CQA035_Karen-Johnson_Website-Thumbnail_v1.png\",\"width\":382,\"height\":294},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/podcast\/whats-new-and-whats-next-for-primary-care\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What\u2019s New and What\u2019s Next for Primary Care\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/\",\"name\":\"NCQA\",\"description\":\"Measuring quality. 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