Why not eliminate this anachronistic charade of the general practitioner and use nurse practitioners and physician assistants to fill the gap? This is already happening in rural areas, which sometimes lack even a single primary care physician.

Policymakers should be aware that even well-informed patients with good access to primary care need the ER. Legislation should aim to increase availability of primary care, but not penalize for use of emergency services.

The insufferable pace of primary care combined with the erosion of the doctor-patient relationship deters young physicians from entering the field. In my graduating class of 30 or so internal medicine trainees, only two of us chose to go into primary care.

Patients living in areas with more primary care physicians have lower death rates and fewer preventable hospitalizations, new research suggests. But a...

Because primary care providers are the initial contact for patients with a wide array of conditions, we are the proverbial Jack of all trades. But we also think broadly about what may be wrong.

WASHINGTON — Better beat the crowd and find a doctor. Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the land...

Training doctors to uncover and treat the underlying causes of disease could eliminate much of the unnecessary reliance on pharmaceuticals and reduce their devastating, and sometimes deadly, side effects.

I believe that in order to fully fix our healthcare system, we must focus on reforming primary care medicine in this country.