“Envisioning New Roles for Medical Assistants: Strategies From Patient-Centered Medical Homes” [March/April 2013] does not describe new ideas, despite what the title suggests. We seasoned physicians have worked with our more highly educated nursing staff in the ways described in the article since the beginning. Over the past two decades, tighter profit margins have led to an increase in hiring medical assistants. As the article states, medical assistants recently out of school need additional training and education, which requires additional cost outlays as well as salary. This older doctor would like a little acknowledgment that these “new” ways of working are how we used to do things, when we had a higher educated staff from the start. You can call it anything you want to, but calling it new is a disservice to previous generations.