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In the past 5 years, treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection transformed from toxic and ineffective to well-tolerated and immensely effective. Do HCV-positive patients still need hepatologists or infectious disease specialists to supervise their treatment? In a partially industry-supported trial, researchers assigned 600 HCV-positive patients from 13 urban community health centers to receive treatment from 1 of 16 providers: 5 nurse practitioners (NPs), 5 primary care physicians (PCPs), 5 infectious disease specialists, and 1 hepatologist. All providers received the same 3-hour training course and were linked to patients in a nonrandom fashion (because of preexisting clinical relationships and other logistical factors). No patients …