It goes without saying that patients and medical providers all want quality, accessible, and affordable care for themselves and their families. Experts have suggested we should look to Mayo and Cleveland Clinics as the model clinics for the future. Most patients, however, are not seen in large clinics. Doctors in small, private practices without the resources of a Mayo or Cleveland Clinic provide the vast majority of the health care in the United States. Successful implementation of any type of health care reform will depend on thousands of private practices throughout the United States. One such private practice is Primary Health Medical Group with 12 clinics located throughout southwestern Idaho.
Primary Health Medical Group has created a unique clinic system that offers accessible, reasonably priced, and quality care to insured, uninsured, Medicare, and Medicaid patients. Our model is based on a "combination clinic" that offers urgent care and appointment family practice services in each location. Unlike the traditional model, the urgent care and appointment providers work jointly to address patient episodic and chronic needs.
An example of the efficiency of Primary Health Medical Group's combination clinic model is how Medicaid patients are assigned to the whole group rather than just one doctor. We allow the patients to seek care at any clinic location without an appointment through the Urgent Care. The use of electronic health records allows patients to have their medical information available at any of our 12 clinics. If further follow-up is required, patients are scheduled with an appointment family practitioner within our organization. The clinics become the patient’s “medical home” rather than one doctor. The Idaho Director of Health and Welfare has praised our system for its ability to address the needs of Medicaid patients within the private sector and has further noted that PHMG’s patients have a lower rate of hospital emergency department visits.
Find out what other innovative things we are doing at PHMG today - before health care reform becomes a reality. And you'll see our approach to medicine is not only better for the patient, but better for the provider as well. Contact us today.
Labels: combination clinic, health care reform, medicaid, medicare