The Delivery of Primary Care by Specialists

To the Editor: I write with reference to the article by Aiken and her colleagues in the June 14 issue of the Journal.¹ I feel compelled to do so because I served as a member of the Care Classification Research Advisory Committee for the study by Mendenhall referred to in this article. That committee devised the algorithm used to classify and describe doctor–patient encounters investigated in the study. Aiken et al. rely heavily on that classification in the analysis that they present. The study by Mendenhall has been reported elsewhere.^2,3 It was a large and worthwhile effort that described.