By Steven A. Barrett, MD, FAAFP I am realizing that practice management in the new medicine is derived more from “group-think” than individual initiative. While this might work well for large medical organizations, where does it leave the imaginative individual physician trying to create improved medical care delivery systems? Of course, I am speaking from personal experience and raising this issue as a challenge to our medical system to be more open and inclusive and take advantage of all available bright ideas for improvement. ...

Creating sustainable, timely care delivery models designed to help patients achieve improved health outcomes is a challenge. The complex, chronic conditions of America’s workforce are driving the need for these models forcing employers into the position of leading health care delivery innovation. Employers, the primary source of insurance for 55.7% of Americans[i], have found themselves tasked with reducing healthcare’s unprecedented, rising costs to protect employee health, talent retention, productivity, and ...

There are many factors in medicine these days that have pushed primary care practice to be mostly a salaried, employed-physician model as part of a large organization. Many of the old personal autonomy benefits have been lost. Rising overhead costs and lagging fee-for-service reimbursement have made it difficult for private practitioners to fund all the required elements of the new healthcare delivery team. Additionally, there are heavy administrative burdens to achieve necessary certifications or just accomplish even simple care goals and also to follow ...