COVID-19's Financial Impact on Primary Care Clinicians and Practices

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Figure 1.
Number of Times a Unique Participant Has Participated.
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Figure 2.
Locations of Respondents (n = 268). Note: A total of 193 participants have missing locations.

Table 1.

Respondents' Specialty and Practice Type Affiliation, (n = 461)

	n (%)
Specialty
Family medicine	312 (67.7)
Other	20 (4.3)
Behavioral health	8 (1.7)
General internal medicine	7 (1.5)
Emergency medicine	4 (0.9)
Dental	1 (0.2)
Missing	109 (23.6)
Practice Type
Primary care only	132 (28.6)
Multi-specialty group (primary and specialty physicians)	34 (7.4)
Academic practice	34 (7.4)
Other	28 (6.1)
Academic center-based residency program	26 (5.6)
Community-based residency program	25 (5.4)
Integrated health	23 (5.0)
Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)	21 (4.6)
Rural health clinic	20 (4.3)
Affiliated with academic medical center	19 (4.1)
Community Health Center (CHC)	10 (2.2)
Fellowship program	3 (0.7)
FQHC Look-Alike (FQHC-LA)	3 (0.7)

Table 2.

Weekly Survey Distribution Details

Weekly Survey	Survey Distribution andClose Dates^*	Survey Respondents (N)	Respondents Who Answered the Financial Impact Question (N)
Week 1	March 27 to 30	186	145
Week 2	April 3 to 6	114	93
Week 3	April 10 to 13	176	131
Week 4	April 17 to 20	125	89
Week 5	April 24 to 27	101	81
Week 6	May 1 to 4	96	79
Week 7	May 8 to 11	80	65
Week 8	May 15 to 18	68	58
Week 9	May 22 to 25	75	66
Week 10	May 29 to June 1	82	66
Week 11	June 5 to 8	63	52
Week 12	June 12 to 15	65	57
Total		1231^†	982^†

Table 3.

Number of Responses by Categories Based on Weekly Results

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8	Week 9	Week 10	Week 11	Week 12
Patient visits	87	45	61	40	38	38	27	28	35	28	24	23
Financial strain	26	16	17	11	28	30	37	31	43	43	35	38
Staffing	23	20	22	33	26	20	22	16	12	19	10	18
Video (telehealth)	45	20	33	24	22	9	9	8	5	9	4	7
Audio-only (telehealth)	12	4	7	6	10	5	1	3	1	1	2	2

Table 4.

Staffing Tactics Used to Cut Costs

Staffing Tactics Used to Cut Costs
Reduce hours
Reduce salary
Implement layoffs
Use furloughs for physicians, staff, and/or owners
Allow employees to work part-time to qualify for unemployment depending on the state
Redirect providers to inpatient care (or other areas where there could be more demand)
See more patients per day to make up lost revenue, cross-train and transfer staff to areas that have high demand and need extra support (eg, inpatient care)
Omit physician bonus and incentive pay, and not pay hazard pay
Pause contributions to retirement benefits
Keep mid-level professionals (less expensive than experienced staff)
Incorporate hiring freezes
Offer voluntary time off without pay
Direct employees to use paid time off