HEALTH CARE

Doctor-Run Care Program: A Newport Beach physician is leading the local drive to attract California doctors to a new statewide, physician-run managed care program.

Peter Anderson, president of the Orange County Medical Assn., said he plunked down $1,000 this week to buy into California Advantage Inc., a company conceived by the California Medical Assn. as an alternative to the growing popularity of health maintenance organizations and other managed-care groups.

California Advantage, Anderson said, gives doctors an opportunity to “take back the decision-making in medicine which has been taken from them.” Doctors long have chafed under HMOs and similar programs that put administrators, not physicians, in charge of many medical decisions.

California Advantage, which is seeking $1,000 each from at least 3,000 doctors to get off the ground, wants to start a statewide preferred provider organization next year and then seek licensing as an HMO.

Its board of directors would be composed solely of physicians, who would manage health care decisions for patients.

The statewide doctors group mailed prospectuses to 28,000 members earlier this week and already has received a dozen checks.