The Academy should continue to support mechanisms for training increased numbers of family physicians who emphasize health promotion and disease prevention, thereby avoiding more costly hospital care, and who are uniquely qualified to provide appropriate, cost-effective care to the people of America.
The Academy should continue to educate physicians concerning the issue of medical liability risk management in an effort to reduce the incidence of medical liability suits. The Academy should also increase its public education efforts by linking the high costs of medical liability insurance to the escalating cost of medical care.
The Academy should maintain its efforts to provide public education which emphasizes the responsibility of the individual patient for his/her personal health and for rising health care costs. This campaign should emphasize the positive effects of exercise, nutrition and highway safety and the detriments of drug and substance abuse, obesity and smoking.
The Academy will continue as the representative of the patient -- the patient's advocate -- in negotiating with the government, and will continue to stress quality control, rather than cost containment, as the primary goal of regulation. The Academy further believes that each practicing family physician should set a practice example exemplary of high quality family medicine with careful attention to self-imposed cost containment. (1977) (2019 COD)