FORT COLLINS — Her patients – two young sisters – could easily have ended up in the emergency room.

Instead, Dr. Kelly Lowther, a Miramont Family Medicine primary-care physician in Fort Collins, was able to closely monitor their recurring urinary system infections, bring in other professionals in the practice, and prescribe treatments that spared them a trip to the hospital.

"When you have children with medical problems, that's a pretty stressful and frightening situation," Lowther said. The mother "was happy that we were intimately involved."

Restoring a patient's health is rewarding, of course. But because she was also able to save the insurance carrier money, Lowther also received another sort of reward – a monetary bonus.

This new way of paying doctors has health care reformers excited. They say it's an approach that has the potential to finally make a real difference in the drive to control health care inflation.

The program "truly has the potential to transform primary care in this country," said Dr. David Abbey of Internal Medicine Clinic of Fort Collins.

"If there's not a solid primary-care foundation for health care delivery in the U.S.,