Not All Primary Care Is Equal and the Gap Could Be Costing You.
Last month we argued that Washington employers cannot keep absorbing an 8 percent year over year cost increase by shifting the bill to employees. Cost pressure alone will not change the trajectory. What changes it is value, and value is the place where quality and cost come together.
According to the 2026 Community Checkup, 82 percent of commercial quality measures in Washington fall below the national 50th percentile. Sixty-two percent fall below the 25th percentile. On no individual measure this year did Washington perform above the national 90th percentile. The pattern has held for several reporting cycles.
The measures where Washington lags are the ones primary care is supposed to handle. Breast cancer screening runs 68 percent against 81 percent. Cervical cancer screening comes in at 61 percent against 81 percent. These are exactly the places where preventive care keeps problems from becoming expensive downstream care.
High-performing primary care does exist in Washington. The Community Checkup highlights Best In Class clinics exceeding the national 90th percentile on screening, chronic disease management, and preventive care. The problem is that most employees cannot find them.
A study from Castlight Health revealed how wide that gap is. When members used a navigation tool to pick a primary care provider, 24.5 percent chose a physician rated “Exceptional.” Among members who picked on their own, that number dropped to 6.7 percent. The providers available were the same. What changed was whether employees had a way to see quality before choosing.
McKinsey’s Reimagining US employer health benefits report confirms the pattern. Employees are deeply dissatisfied with the experience of understanding their benefits and finding care, and more than 70 percent of employers work with three or more benefits vendors. The complexity most employees face is the default, not the exception. The 2024 Large Employer Health Care Strategy Survey from the Business Group on Health, covering 152 employers and more than 19 million lives, found that lowering total cost of care, reducing unnecessary services, and prioritizing primary care top the list of employer strategic priorities. Navigation is how leading employers are executing.
Castlight Health is one of our members helping Washington employers put that infrastructure in place, connecting employees to high-value primary care and coordinating across physical and behavioral health.
Cost and quality are not separate problems. Value is what happens when you solve for both.
Washington Health Alliance invites you to explore these strategies with peers at Beyond the Bottom Line: Strategies for High-Value, Affordable Healthcare on May 13 featuring a panel supported by Castlight Health. Discover how leading employers are breaking the cost spiral and building sustainable, high-value care. Register to join the conversation and see how your organization can lead the way.