The 20th National Conference on Primary Health Care Access – April 6-8, 2009

Last Updated on April 16, 2022 by Lee Burnett, DO, FAAFP

The Twentieth National conference on Primary Health Care Access will be held at the Hyatt Regency Monterey from Monday, April 6 through Wednesday April 8, 2009. The theme of the Twentieth National Conference will be “Primary Health Care Access, the American Medical System, and the Potential for Sudden Change“.

Over the past year, it has become apparent that whole industries, such as mortgage banking, investment banking (and banking in general) and homebuilding, can be transformed in a very short period of time.

As one sorts through the factors that led to such sweeping changes, one can retrospectively observe major imbalances in the way the industries were organized and in the characteristics of the revenue streams that financed them.

The American health care system, unlike the health systems in the rest of the industrialized world, grossly underinvests in primary health care, preventive medicine and public health.  It also implies access to high cost tertiary care services for the entire American population (delivered through emergency rooms or by hospitals for unfunded patients who have not had access to good medical care).

Yet, something approaching half of the American population is considered “uninsured” or “underinsured” and the principal government source of health care financing, Medicare, appears to be approaching insolvency in a time of great stress on the United States’ federal budget.

The Twentieth National Conference will discuss the urgency for change in health care priorities, what such change should be, signs of distress and signs of hope.  The invitees to the National Conference will include persons will experience in public policy, medical and health sciences education, and health care practice.

Faculty

The distinguished permanent faculty of the National Conferences on Primary Health Care Access includes noted author Doctor John Geyman, Emeritus Chair of Family Medicine at the University of Washington. For the seventh consecutive National Conference he will make a major presentation in the field of health care policy.

Additional members of the National Conference faculty will be announced shortly. The National Conference program will be available on this website soon.

Registration INCLUDES hotel room.

The Twentieth National Conference INCLUDES three nights of accommodations at the Hyatt Regency (Sunday, April 5, Monday, April 6 and Tuesday, April 7, checking out at noon on April 8, 2009.)

About the Conference:

The Twentieth National Conference, like its predecessors, is an intense, two and a half-day experience that begins in assigned breakfast breakout groups each day at 6:30a.m. and continues through mid-day.

No events are scheduled on Monday or Tuesday afternoon or evening. As with all of the National Conferences, spouses/partners and families are welcome and encouraged to come. The dedicated free time permits conference registrants to assure their families that they will have time for them. Alternatively, it permits registrants to enjoy the surroundings in one of the world’s premiere destinations.

The Coastal Research Group requires that all registration fees be received in advance, including for extra room nights, and does not permit refunds. However, a full credit for all payments made are available for use at future National Conferences (provided that a cancellation of a registration is received in time to prevent the imposition of charges on the Coastal Research Group. Any such charges would be deducted from any credit.) All persons holding credits are invited automatically to future National Conferences.

For further information, contact the Coastal Research Group at [email protected]

Concepts

Among the concepts integral to all of the National Conferences’ activities, are the propositions that (1) all Americans should have access to primary health care, (2) that health care resources should be geographically distributed to promote such access, with special attention to rural and inner city areas, (3) that the concepts of family medicine, and of accessible comprehensive and continuous helath care services, are critical elements for improving health care in the United States, and (4) that family medicine residency programs and community health centers enhance primary health care access.