In the Finger Lakes, access to health care can be a daily struggle. Our community members often have to travel miles to see a primary care provider, which means that many put off preventative care until it becomes a crisis.

Primary care is the foundation of well-being. But across rural New York, that foundation is under strain.

At Finger Lakes Community Health, we serve patients across a region defined by its geography — small towns, rural communities, and long distances between care providers. For many of our patients, accessing primary care is not as simple as scheduling an appointment. It means navigating transportation barriers, limited provider availability, and a shrinking healthcare workforce.

The data reflects what our team sees on the ground every day. In parts of Yates county, 16% of adults do not have a usual source of care. That figure is even higher in Seneca county, with 17% of adults not having a usual source of care. This means thousands of people across the Finger Lakes do not have a regular place to go when they are sick or need preventive care.

When people lack access to primary care, they delay treatment, conditions worsen, and preventable illnesses become emergencies. In Ontario county, 18% of emergency visits by adults were potentially preventable, compared to 13% across New York State. In nearby Finger Lakes communities, that metric rises to 19% and even 21% in parts of nearby Wayne county. To make matters worse, barriers to care do not end with our neighbors facing preventable ER visits.

Surveys of the Finger Lakes region show that our neighbors face persistent barriers to care, including long wait times, transportation challenges, and a shortage of providers that don’t meet demand. Workforce shortages are especially acute in rural counties like Yates, Schuyler, and Steuben, where access to health professionals continues to decline.

These are not isolated issues. They are part of a broader pattern of underinvestment in primary care that is playing out across rural New York.

For too long, primary care providers have been stretched thin, forced to make do without adequate resources and funding.

Despite accounting for a significant share of health care visits, primary care receives only a small fraction of total health care spending. At the same time, New York faces widespread primary care shortages, with millions of residents living in areas designated as having too few providers. Rural communities feel this gap most acutely, as fewer providers choose to practice in areas with smaller patient bases and tighter financial margins.

The result is a self-reinforcing cycle: too few providers, longer wait times, delayed care, and ultimately higher costs for patients and the health care system.

The Primary Care Investment Act offers a new path forward for our community and New Yorkers across the state.

By requiring health plans to invest a greater share of health care spending in primary care, this legislation would help stabilize and expand the primary care workforce, strengthen community-based providers, and improve access to care.

For the Finger Lakes, this would bring more providers into rural communities and allow community health centers like ours to expand services. Most importantly, it would mean that more people have access to care before their health issues become crises.

Rural communities are often described as resilient, and we are. But resilience should not be a substitute for access. No one’s health should depend on their ZIP code. Yet across the Finger Lakes, that is today’s reality.

If our leaders are serious about improving health outcomes, reducing costs, and addressing inequities, they must start by investing in primary care, especially in rural communities that have been underinvested in for far too long.

The choice before us is clear. We can continue to pay for preventable crises, struggle to overcome unnecessary barriers, and forgo important treatment, or we can invest in the care that keeps people healthy in the first place.

For rural New York, investing in primary care cannot wait.

Mary Zelazny has been the CEO of Finger Lakes Community Health since 2006.

© Finger Lakes Times