Transitioning Patients From Specialty Care to Primary Care: What We Know and What We Can Do

Growing demand for specialty care has resulted in longer wait times for appointments, particularly at US academic referral centers. A proportion of specialty visits are for routine follow-up care of stable problems, and there is evidence that primary care providers are willing and able to take responsibility for a significant proportion of these patients. However, little is known about how to transition care back to a referring primary care clinician in a manner that is acceptable to everyone involved. In this article, we describe social, legal, and financial barriers to effective care transition and propose communication strategies to overcome them.