This week Primary PartnerCare secured 5,000 N95 masks for its 100+ independent primary care physicians, fighting to care for their long-established patients in the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. "When we lost one of our own doctors to COVID-19, we knew we had to do all that we could to help these frontline doctors survive the pandemic," said Marion Davis, CEO of Primary PartnerCare Management Group. "Primary Care physicians are the foundation of the US Healthcare System, with Medicare, private insurance and the states assigning responsibility for the overall cost and quality of care to these doctors, yet very little has been done to support these frontline practices through the pandemic" Davis continued.

"Almost 60% of our practices are still open and seeing patients in their offices, and we are supplementing with telehealth for patients that do not want to come into our offices," stated Harry Jacob, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Primary PartnerCare. "The CDC and the New York State Department of Health have safety guidelines for medical offices, but they only work if we can secure the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) we need, and that is extremely difficult for small practices" Jacob continued. Primary PartnerCare was able to use its employee network to source an American manufacturer with established contacts in China.

The Primary Care Collaborative in partnership with The Larry A. Green Center recently published results of an April 10-13 survey of primary care practices across America, and reported that fewer than half of the respondents feel they had enough patient volume to stay open for the next four weeks (46%) or enough cash on-hand to stay open for the next four weeks (47%). Dr. Stephen Sisselman, Regional Medical Director, Primary PartnerCare commented "Fortunately, we do not see such devastating numbers from our doctors. The public needs to understand that each primary care doctor has an active panel of over 2,300 patients, meaning that our 100 doctors care for over 230,000 patients, and when you add in our 40 nurse practitioners and physician assistants the number of patients exceed 300,000 patients. The Country cannot afford to have primary care collapse."