03/27/2026
AFTER VISIT SUMMARY
Tried to see a primary care doctor in Oregon lately? Average wait times - even in Portland - are now 45 days, double the national average. It’s not about lack of insurance - it’s a drastic shortage of primary care providers and too few who still accept Medicaid or Medicare.
The result: patients packing the ER or pinging specialists for low-level care, backing up the system for everyone.
Policy makers and providers on an OHF panel today landed on some places to focus, including:
Team-based care with solid models to pay for it.
Common metrics for measuring quality care so that clinics aren’t crunching dozens of different data points for different insurers just to get paid. “I have a fulltime staff of 10 that are just tracking the metrics,” said panelist Mark Meyers, M.D., Springfield Family Physicians.
Loan forgiveness for newly minted providers who commit to primary care and other workforce incentives.
Medicaid CCOs partnering more closely with clinics, and amplifying the basic truth that a health care system that values treating illness more than preventing it costs far more and supports people far less.
OHA is leaning in: “We know primary care is foundational. We know improvement is needed and we are committed to bringing parties together to collectively solve the problem,” said Chris DeMars, Director of Oregon Health Authority's Delivery System Innovation Office.
Antonio Germann, M.D., in his work as vice chair of the Oregon Health Policy Board, sees traction and teamwork. “We are going to make the system a bit more simple and not drive people out.”
State Senator Lisa Reynolds, a pediatrician, is determined: “When we talk about health, it’s primary care. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Let’s make primary care the phoenix that rises from the ashes and that includes where we spend our money.”
Catch Part II (https://wp.me/p34Ikx-2f0) of our Primary Care on the Brink series April 7, 3 pm to 5 pm, on the U of O’s new Northeast Portland campus (formerly Concordia U) as innovators discuss new - and re-emerging - models of care.
