AAFP disputes advisers' position

American Academy of Family Physicians President Lori Heim, MD, disputed a recent article by White House advisers in the Annals of Internal Medicine that stated that healthcare reform would lead to fewer solo and 2-physician practices.

The article, by the director of the Office of Health Reform Nancy-Ann DeParle and advisers Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, and Robert Kocher, MD, stated in the abstract that healthcare reform will lead to "vertical organization of providers and accelerate physician employment by hospitals and aggregation into larger physician groups."

Heim, in a letter to DeParle sent in September, wrote that primary care initiatives such as patient-centered medical homes "need not be [in] a large physician practice. Indeed, physicians in a solo, small, or medium-sized practice do provide the important team-based primary care and preventive health services and chronic disease management called for in the health reform legislation."