Anticipating trends toward generalism in medicine, the rheumatology community has begun to set forth guidelines for managing osteoarthritis (OA). These guidelines emphasize a comprehensive approach toward nondrug treatment (e.g., patient education, exercise, social support) and a conservative approach to drug management to minimize the side effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Unfortunately, few primary care physicians provide conservative, comprehensive care for OA as promoted in the recent rheumatology literature. Also, although researchers have studied individual elements of a comprehensive approach to OA care and largely validated them in isolation, no research support exists to suggest that uniformly adopting OA care guidelines will result in better patient outcomes and/or reduced costs of care.