(a) “Primary care physician” is a physician who has the responsibility for providing initial and primary care to patients, for maintaining the continuity of patient care, and for initiating referral for specialist care. A primary care physician shall be either a physician who has limited his or her practice of medicine to general practice or who is a board-certified or board-eligible internist, pediatrician, obstetrician-gynecologist, or family practitioner.

(b) A nonphysician medical practitioner, as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 14088, who is supervised by a primary care physician, has the responsibility for providing initial and primary care to patients, for maintaining the continuity of patient care, and for initiating referral for specialist care.

(Amended by Stats. 2013, Ch. 684, Sec. 5. (SB 494) Effective January 1, 2014.)