I have always loved that slogan, “at your fingertips,” because that’s how the world works today. We live in a fast-paced world, and we often need things fast. Having your Primary Care at your fingertips means you don’t have to waste a lot of time searching for answers you don’t fully trust. To do that, though, you have to trust your Primary Care Physician.
Primary Care Relationships
All relationships take a bit of work, effort, and sacrifice. The relationship with your Primary Care doctor is no different. Your effort will pay off in the long term for both parties.
I have built my patient relationships over the past few years, knowing that we build trust over time and can trust each other when health issues arise.
Most of us will go through life relatively healthy, but then we’ll deal with a few small scares or have a few health setbacks. It’s quite feasible to face these challenges alone, but it’s lonely and bewildering.
A good Primary Care relationship is valuable because you already put a lot into that bank and ready to draw from it when you aren’t at your best.
Communicating With Your PCP
In the traditional model, you wait until you are sick to reach out to your doctor. You then get a reply addressing that particular concern. Often, your PCP is also making sure they don’t miss anything big which might spell a health disaster for you and a malpractice risk for them.
In the concierge medical space, in this Direct Primary Care space, the doctor and the patient are working cooperatively to deal with a common problem. I’m just as concerned about my patient staying healthy as my patient is with addressing their health concern.
Communicating effectively and efficiently is incredibly important. You want your Primary Care at your fingertips, sending that text or calling them when something concerning comes up. Your doctor wants you to let them know of anything that’s even slightly of concern so that they can address it early. That makes for a healthy relationship.
Setting Healthy Expectations
My patients don’t expect me to solve their problems and don’t just message me to dump their problems on me. It’s a relationship, a camaraderie. They know they don’t have to face any health concern alone and can trust me to guide them through their options and offer emotional support.
In the traditional healthcare model, it’s common for patients to go to their Primary Care Physician hoping that the PCP will fix their obesity and their joint pain and screen for colon cancer to prevent any bad outcome from a cancer diagnosis.
In this private health model, my patients and I work together to determine the underlying cause and use motivational interviewing to draw out the best tactic to address the issue. I want my patients to feel empowered and not dependent.
Messaging Your Doctor
I am frequently asked if I’m on call 24/7 for my patients. My answer is that I’m on call the same way your favorite mechanic, dentist, and handyman is on call.
When you have a major water leak in the upstairs bathroom you’ll send your handyman a text and they’ll let you know what you can do, such as turn off the main water supply. They’ll then tell you that they can get there early in the morning to see what they can do.
When you wake up with a severe tooth pain at 6 am you can call your dentist and they might have somone covering their emergency line who can at least prescribe you something for the pain until you can be seen by your own dentist as soon as the office opens.
What all of these scenarious have in common is that your favorite experts are your favorites because they’re always there for you. They are always a text or phone call away to at least get the ball rolling.