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Consumer demand, new drugs and medical technologies, litigation, higher insurance premiums, and other factors have all been fueling rising healthcare costs. At the same time, many patients justifiably feel that medical services have become increasingly impersonal. Too often, quality attention from the proverbial family doctor has been replaced by the assembly line approach of faceless bureaucracies. How is a patient to successfully navigate this modern maze of providers, specialists, insurers, and so forth and at the same time get the attention they need to maintain personal not to mention financial health? In Patient Handbook to Medical Care, J. L. Richardson, M.D., offers an overview of the healthcare system from an insiders perspective and advises patients on how they can take their health into their own hands by becoming both informed and proactive.