It incentivizes doctors to work as primary care physicians and encourages health systems to make it easy for patients to see them.

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Robert Flores, the group's medical director of population health management, says primary care physicians use the team to help them manage patients at high risk of hospitalization or re-hospitalization who can't easily get to a doctor's office.

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Among its many virtues, according to the survey, the state boasts a high percentage of residents with health insurance, high per-capita public health funding and ready availability of primary care physicians.

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Despite improving pay and the critical role primary care physicians will play in the future of health care in the U.S., there remains less interest by doctors-in-training in general medicine than specialty disciplines.

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It says all health workers who see older patients including primary care physicians, nurses, physicians' assistants and social workers need some training to recognize the signs of geriatric mental health problems and provide at least basic care.

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Jeff Brenner, meanwhile, is seeking to lower health-care costs for all of Camden, by getting its primary-care physicians to extend the hot-spot strategy citywide.

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Experts say it is increasingly important for patients to lock in a primary-care doctor soon because of expected increased demand for physicians starting in 2014, when the new federal health-overhaul law will add millions of people to the health-insurance rolls.

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