Do You Need a Family Physician?

I have been in practice for over 20 years now, and I can see how having one relationship with one doctor over time can help you stay healthy and live your best life. I also really like seeing the entire family and how those dynamics all fit together. You are not getting this full picture kind of care by popping in to the urgent care once a year.

In fact, science, which I also love, proves that having a family doctor gives you better health far and above a “workplace wellness plan”. From an article in the Wall Street Journal from February 22nd “...help­ing em­ploy­ees get ac­cess to a pri­mary-care doc­tor might be one of the most im­por­tant things em­ploy­ers could do to im­prove em­ployee health out­comes. A quar­ter of adults and 35% of younger adults don’t have ac­cess to a pri­mary-care doc­tor, and that per­cent­age has been grow­ing. Find­ing a rep­utable doc­tor who takes a per­son’s in­sur­ance and is ac­cept­ing new pa­tients can be dif­fi­cult even for peo­ple with re­sources. Em­ploy­ers and their in­sur­ance providers have the scale to match em­ployees to the right doc­tor. And if work­ers have a pri­mary-care doc­tor, em­ploy­ers can skip col­lect­ing the bio­met­ric data: Doc­tors col­lect that any­way and are in a much bet­ter po­si­tion to do some­thing with it. Health-in­sur­ance plans also should sup­port pre­ven­tive care, such as screen­ings for health risks and fol­low-up vis­its for chronic health prob­lems like hy­per­ten­sion, by among other things not mak­ing doc­tor vis­its for such care pro­hibitively ex­pen­sive.”

Having a relationship makes is easier for us to communicate. I can learn what is the best way to give you information so you can make a health decision. It’s also easier to work on hard things when you feel comfortable with your doctor. I have helped people get over their fear and misunderstanding of what a test would be like, and ended up finding early treatable cancer. I’ve been able to work with people to help them lose weight, quit smoking, drink less, and eat better.

The beauty of our DPC model, is that you just pay one flat fee monthly, and you can come in or do phone/video/texting as much as you need to get your health better. I love the access. When you have to pay a copay for each visit, it’s hard to go in unless you have something really bad going on. Treat yourself to a DPC membership!