At Brown & Toland, we are committed to providing quality healthcare for you and your family. Our philosophy is based on the simple fact that physicians and patients, not administrators, make the best healthcare decisions.

Additionally, Brown & Toland members enjoy widespread access to San Francisco's top physicians and healthcare facilities. We also have a number of effective prevention programs designed to keep you healthy.

Brown & Toland's clinical performance sets standards in the industry. Over the years Brown & Toland has earned numerous awards for quality, including the prestigious Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH) Blue Ribbon Award for medical excellence three consecutive years. We welcome opportunities for patient feedback and use this information for continuous improvement.

Physician and Patient Driven Decisions

At Brown & Toland, we believe that patients receive the best medical care when they, together with their physicians, make medical decisions. Under Brown & Toland's contracts with HMOs, including HMOs for seniors, your primary care physician is authorized to refer you to a specialist without waiting for HMO approvals.

Widespread Access to Physicians and Facilities

Brown & Toland patients have access to a large network of independent physicians in San Francisco, with more than 800 acclaimed physicians, board-certified in more than 40 different specialties, practicing at California Pacific Medical Center, Chinese Hospital, Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, St. Luke's Hospital, St. Mary's Medical Center, and Seton Medical Center.

Prevention Programs

Every healthcare organization says it is committed to quality, but at Brown & Toland, we prove our commitment with thorough quality and health improvement programs, designed to keep our patients healthy and reduce health care costs.

Over the years, Brown & Toland has invested millions of dollars in technology to provide information to our physicians that help them deliver the best patient care possible. We believe that good healthcare exists when physicians and their patients work together to develop the proper course of treatment. In one program, Brown & Toland provides a series of reports to its physicians to alert our doctors when their patients need care for a specific condition or to help prevent the onset of disease -- for instance, when a patient with a family history of coronary artery disease may need a cholesterol test, or when a woman over the age of 50 may need a mammogram. Physicians and patients work collaboratively to ensure patients are receiving the correct treatment at the right time.

On a group level, we also monitor the level of care our physicians provide against national preventative medicine standards to ensure that our patients are receiving the proper amount of care in a timely and efficient manner. Additionally, we offer special programs for patients with diabetes, asthma and HIV as well as other prevention programs. And, in conjunction with our healthcare partners, we offer a number of health and wellness classes for all of our patients, including seniors and new mothers.


Setting the Standard

We were one of the first medical groups in California to meet the same standards for quality care and patient rights as health maintenance organizations. In addition, we voluntarily allow state and national agencies to review our performance to ensure that our patients receive state-of-the-art medical care. Brown & Toland, along with its physicians, develops clinical guidelines ("best practices") to ensure that the most current and cutting-edge approaches to medical care are available to patients.

Patient Feedback

To maintain our standards, we constantly look for opportunities for improvement. For example, we regularly survey our members about their experience with our providers and share feedback with our doctors confidentially. This helps our providers improve the medical care they provide, including the length of time it takes to get an appointment, the providers' skills in explaining tests and procedures, and the courtesy and efficiency of office staff.

We are proud of the Brown & Toland tradition, and continually strive to make healthcare better.