How family physicians are funded in the United States.

The Robert Graham Center, Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care, Washington, DC, USA. Larry A Green, MD, Director. Larry A Green lives and works in both Denver, Colorado, and Washington, DC. In Denver, he leads the national program office of Prescription for Health, a practice-based research initiative funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In Washington, he directs The Robert Graham Center, Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care, a research center supported by the American Academy of Family Physicians, committed to bringing a family medicine and primary care perspective to policy deliberations at a national and state level. Reprints will not be available from the author. Correspondence: Dr L A Green, The Robert Graham Center, Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care, Washington, DC, USA. [email protected] The Medical Journal of Australia ISSN: 0025729X 19 July 2004 181 2 113-114 ©The Medical Journal of Australia 2004 www.mja.com.au GP Funding — Viewpoint “. . . the need to manage escalating health care cost taining reasonable access to care is becoming the sal in US health care policy”. The diversity of healthcare arrangements in the U single, reliable answer as to how family physici However, sing national reports, including surveys American Academy of Family Physicians, a gene nd is ine U erperformance of the healthcare system at great expense the situation in the United States. The results are great quity, problems with access, missed opportunities for prevention, fragmented rather than integrated care, relatively poor chronic disease care, and high expenses without commensurate improvements in health as compared with what would be expected from a well-functioning primary care system. Indeed, s while mainient challenge