Effective Jan 1, 2014Amended by Stats. 2013, Ch. 684, Sec. 5. (SB 494) Effective January 1, 2014.
(a) “Primary care physician” is a physician who has the responsibility for providing initial and primary care to patients, for maintaining the continuity of patient care, and for initiating referral for specialist care. A primary care physician shall be either a physician who has limited his or her practice of medicine to general practice or who is a board-certified or board-eligible internist, pediatrician, obstetrician-gynecologist, or family practitioner.
(b) A nonphysician medical practitioner, as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 14088, who is supervised by a primary care physician, has the responsibility for providing initial and primary care to patients, for maintaining the continuity of patient care, and for initiating referral for specialist care.