A Doctor in the House

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The savings are clear enough to Patricia Guiles, 74, of Palm Bay, Fla., whose husband Harold, 77 and in poor health, fell and couldn't get up. She called 911. But by the time the ambulance arrived, she had talked with her husband's house-call doctor by cell phone. She sent the ambulance away, and the doctor came, checked her husband's heart with an ECG, gave him a shot and adjusted his medication. The next day the doctor sent a technician with a portable electrocardiograph to check his heart. "This is much more intimate care," she says. And she saved thousands of dollars by staying out of the emergency room.

But house-call care isn't really about money. It's about a system that benefits every generation in a close family. "The routine care is irreplaceable," Judith Kurzweil says of Lyons' visits. Because her mother can live at home, Kurzweil says, "my daughters have time with their grandmother. They walk into her room and talk with her, and she lights up when they come in and tell Grammy something." That may be the best medicine of all.