The freelance workforce is driving New York City’s economy – and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn today made that fact crystal clear in her State of the City address.

And just as important, she’s putting the city’s money in the pot to help support new ways to bring health care to independent workers.

Thanks in no small part to Speaker Quinn and the city, we hope that soon our 93,000 members in the five boroughs will have a new and innovative way to access primary care.

Later this year, we expect to open the doors to our first “medical home,” a new health care model for working families. Our new initiative would offer New Yorkers an array of integrated, affordable primary care services.

What is a medical home? It centralizes patient care under one roof, helping patients, providers, and insurers work together to focus foremost on patient health – and keep costs down.

“This kind of creative health care model has the power to connect more New Yorkers to primary care, take some of the burden off of struggling hospitals, and strengthen our non-profit healthcare system,” Speaker Quinn said in her speech today. (Full text of the speech here.)

We are still finalizing the details of exactly where the medical home would be and when it would open, but we are committed to this new model of primary care that would allow doctors to spend more time with patients, deliver more preventive and wellness care, and adopt innovative features that better meet the needs of patients.

This patient-centered care model allows physicians to limit their patient load, focus more intensely on each patient, reduce wait times, and lower costs by moving away from the old fee-for-service model.

If you are enrolled in a Freelancers Insurance Company plan, don’t worry. The medical home would just be an additional option for you to consider. It would not replace any existing insurance offering. But when you see the cost savings and coordinated service we hope to offer, you may want to give it a shot.

What do you think of this model? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter at @Sara_Horowitz.