Primary Care — ACORN

Primary Care Advocacy

Virginia primary care workforce

We have tracked the primary care workforce in Virginia since 2019 using the Virginia All-Payer Claims Database (APCD), the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES), Virginia Department of Health Professions (VDHP) licensure data, and manual efforts.

Measuring Primary Care Capacity: Unique Patients Seen per Year and Implications for Workforce Shortages, The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, November 2025

Using State All-Payer Claims Data to Identify the Active Primary Care Workforce: A Novel Study in Virginia, Annals of Family Medicine, September 2022

Trends and disparities in telehealth use in Virginia

Senior Data Analyst Jong Hyung Lee, PhD published a study in JMIR Formative Research (January 2026) analyzing millions of primary care visits and telehealth encounters. Telehealth use surged in Virginia during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in rural areas. However, the findings indicate that disparities persist in the post–COVID-19 pandemic period, especially among minority population groups and older adults. Addressing these gaps requires targeted interventions, including expanding broadband infrastructure and improving telehealth literacy. These efforts are crucial to ensuring equitable access to telehealth services, especially for underserved communities.

Dr. Lee said in an interview with VCU News, “Telehealth use expanded rapidly across Virginia, and it was encouraging to see rural communities making progress. Our spatial analysis, however, shows a more complex picture. Where someone lives – and whether they have reliable broadband – still strongly affects who can use these services.”

Dr. Lee and co-author Alex Krist, MD, MPH also spoke with local news WTVR-CBS 6 Richmond for a piece about telehealth access.

Virginia Commonwealth University family medicine residencies

VCU has five affiliated family medicine residency programs in South Hill, Fairfax, Newport News, Front Royal, and Midlothian. They have collectively trained thousands of family physicians who have gone on to serve the Commonwealth of Virginia and many stay in the communities where they were trained. In three years (2019-2021), VCU-affiliated family medicine residency program graduates saw 1,580,725 unique Virginians, or nearly 20% of the population. Their significant role in the delivery of primary care is thanks to the efforts of the directors, faculty, and staff at each site. You can visit the VCU Family Medicine website for more information and click on the one-pagers below to learn about the footprint of each residency.

Primary care as a value center

A recent article from Dr. Luci Leykum in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst - Reconceptualizing Primary Care: From Cost Center to Value Center - highlights that preserving and improving primary care will not be an automatic result of value-based reimbursement. Instead, this requires rethinking care to focus on relationships among the four pillars of primary care: patients and their families, physicians, health systems, and their surrounding communities. See our summary.

The Virginia Primary Care Survey

Funded by the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services and supported by the Virginia Task Force on Primary Care, the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Family Medicine and Population Health and the Ambulatory Care Outcomes Research Network are tracking the state, scope, capacity, and health of primary care in Virginia.

Annually, we identify every primary care practice and clinician in the state. And every four years, we conduct a practice-level survey to understand how the practices are serving their communities. The survey has been conducted twice, in 2018-2019 before Medicaid expansion and in 2021-2022 after Medicaid expansion and the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are grateful for the practices, clinicians, staff, and professional organizations that have helped us with this effort.