NCQA Launches Advanced Primary Care Pilot Program—Meet Our Primary Care Partners!
February 26, 2026 · NCQA Communications
Primary care is the cornerstone of a high-functioning healthcare system. It improves outcomes, lowers costs and strengthens patient trust. Yet primary care is under enormous pressure from workforce shortages, uneven reimbursement and escalating patient needs. If we don’t invest in primary care, we risk weakening the foundation of the healthcare system.
NCQA’s Advanced Primary Care Pilot Program is defining the next generation of primary care. Building on what we’ve learned from our Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition program, the pilot will accelerate innovation, test scalable models and help healthcare organizations meet the needs of diverse communities.
“Primary care is the foundation of a high-quality health system and one of the strongest levers to improve population health and affordability. The organizations participating in this pilot are doing more than testing approaches—they’re helping the entire industry learn and shaping the future of primary care,” said Vivek Garg, MD, MBA, President and Chief Executive Officer at NCQA. “We’re grateful to our primary care partners for leaning in as pilot participants and helping advance this work for primary care and patients alike.”
Which Organizations Are Participating in the Pilot Program?
NCQA selected four organizations through a competitive process based on their readiness and ability to lead change in primary care and their dedication to innovation and excellence. We’re pleased to announce our primary care partners:
Bluegrass Community Health Center
Hear directly from some of the participating organizations about why they chose to join the pilot program and how it will improve care for patients.
“True systemic change in healthcare starts and ends with primary care. Every day, we see how primary care practices transform lives when they are empowered with the right data and a true value-based model. Through this effort we are proud to bring our decade of experience to help shape a quality standard that emphasizes what actually matters for primary care: preventing illness, serving communities, and delivering better care at a lower cost for everyone.”
Farzad Mostashari, MD, Co-Founder and CEO, Aledade
“Bluegrass Community Health Center appreciates the opportunity to collaborate with NCQA on the Advanced Primary Care pilot. As an FQHC, we are committed to models that recognize the depth of our work while remaining practical and sustainable. This pilot is an exciting opportunity to help shape a meaningful, usable program that supports primary care without adding unnecessary burden.”
Brandy Coyle, MBA, BS, RN, Chief Compliance Officer, Bluegrass Community Health Center
“As a large academic health system, Jefferson Health deeply values primary care as foundational to individual, family, community and public health across the many communities we serve. Quality measures shape the daily efforts of our clinical teams, and they articulate the value of primary care’s complex work to stakeholders within and beyond healthcare. We appreciate NCQA’s leadership in bringing on-the-ground voices from diverse organizations to help redefine the nation’s approach to primary care quality metrics.”
Anna Flattau, MD, MS, System Chief for Primary Care and Chair of Family and Community Medicine, Jefferson Health
What’s Involved in the Advanced Primary Care Pilot Program?
The PCMH model demonstrated that primary care practices can mature and deliver better outcomes at lower costs, but they must consistently invest in care delivery, data infrastructure and workforce to keep pace with evolving payment and performance expectations. The Advanced Primary Care Pilot Program will build the next step of primary care’s evolution.
“Today, there is no common definition of what ‘advanced’ primary care truly means, and expectations vary across the industry,” says Jeff Sitko, AVP, Product Management at NCQA. “As primary care takes on growing clinical and financial accountability, clearer shared expectations between plans and practices are essential. Through this pilot, we’re testing these concepts in real-world settings and defining a shared roadmap for how primary care capabilities mature, supporting more integrated, data-driven models that strengthen collaboration, advance behavioral health integration and deliver measurable improvements in outcomes.”
NCQA has developed a preliminary set of standards for primary care organizations. Pilot participants will implement and test these standards within their organizations and help identify what is both valuable and realistic. They will also report on a standardized set of electronic clinical quality measures appropriate for their populations and assess the feasibility of reporting digital quality measures.
At the end of the pilot, the four organizations will be rated on their overall results through a “mock survey” process, and they’ll make recommendations about how NCQA should adjust and evolve the standards and measures in the future.
“We’re excited to bring these organizations into the test kitchen with us to determine what actually matters to them,” says Sitko. “Let’s get rid of the ‘fluff’ so we’re not asking delivery systems to check boxes and perform activities procedurally that don’t actually bring value at the end of the day. And let’s make sure we’re anchored in those areas that positively impact clinical outcomes for patients.”
The ultimate goal is to create a clearer path to integrated, data-driven team-based care that enables primary care to thrive in advanced payment models and strengthens the relationship between payers and primary care.
What’s Next
We’ll share the results of the pilot program later this year, along with details about how NCQA plans to enable the next generation of primary care.
In the meantime, listen to our Quality Matters podcast, What’s New and What’s Next for Primary Care, featuring Jeff Sitko and Karen Johnson, Vice President, Practice Advancement for the American Academy of Family Physicians.
