Old-fashioned docs inspire new ’medical homes’

USA Today, July 14, 2008

States, the federal government and private insurers are experimenting with paying primary-care doctors extra money to oversee and coordinate patients' care. The pay boost rewards doctors who reshape their practices to recreate an era when a trusted family physician helped patients through hospitalizations, coordinated specialist care, and provided routine screenings. The efforts may save money by reducing hospitalizations, ER visits, and disease. The "medical homes" concept is a modern twist on an idea first promoted in the 1960s.