Effective health care requires physicians tailor care to patients' individual life contexts, including their financial situation, social support, competing responsibilities, and cognitive abilities. Physicians, however, are poorly prepared to consider patients' lives when planning their care. The result is measurably harmful to individuals and costly to society. 'Listening for What Matters' covers 10 years of empirical research based on hundreds of recorded doctor visits by patients and undercover actors alike, which revealed a widespread disregard of patients' individual circumstances and needs resulting in inappropriate care. This book tells the stories of patients whose care was compromised by inattention to individual context, and introduces novel methods for assessing the magnitude of the problem.