The Familiar Physician

THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK IN HEALTH CARE TODAY Obamacare and the changes it brings could save our primary care doctors from extinction. Or it could crush them. Imagine health care without your Familiar Physician. Every time you're sick, you're a stranger, enduring long waits for medical treatment from someone who may never have seen you before. This is what the future could look like ... because there's a tempest bearing down on primary care medicine. It's powered by frustrated doctors retiring early with not enough physicians in the pipeline to replace them; more than 30 million newly insured patients; an aging population; increasing regulations; and it's converging with a sea change in health care reform. It's the perfect storm that endangers primary care medicine and threatens to drive our trusted familiar physicians toward extinction. Just as primary care is about to collapse, here comes IBM. The patch of fair weather within the coming storm is a care delivery model called the medical home, now quietly embedded in the heart of health care reform. This is the story of the dedicated people who helped build the medical home and implement it on a national level - the enduring vision of IBM's Dr. Martin Sepulveda and the powerful advocacy of his colleague IBM's Dr. Paul Grundy. And it's told through the unique perspective of Dr. Peter Anderson, a pioneer in team care medicine and a champion of primary care whose efforts to create a better model of primary care delivery parallels and supports the development of the medical home. Their efforts show us that passion and inspiration can remain at the heart of health care in the future. As we move toward that future learn what you can do to help assure that the Familiar Physician, the basis for a strong physician-patient relationship, survives the coming storm. Give this book to your doctor. And hurry. You might just save his or her career.