For a generation, doctors in New York’s economically depressed neighborhoods have been the ugly ducklings of the medical hierarchy. Many are foreign born and foreign trained, serve mostly minority and immigrant patients, and often run high-volume practices to compensate for Medicaid’s low rate of payment.
Now these doctors are in the vanguard of an experiment to transform New York’s health care services for the poor from a disorganized hodgepodge into coordinated networks of doctors, hospitals and other practitioners.