“A primary care provider should be seen as a patient’s first line of interaction for any need,” says Ziad Khatib, MD, of First Care Family Medical in Beavercreek. “I would say a majority of the time a primary care provider can take care of the problem right then and there, and if not, they can start the patient on the best route to help resolve it.”
A primary care provider should be seen as the gatekeeper for a patient’s overall care. They have the expertise to understand symptoms and decipher further testing that is needed and also understand when specialists should be consulted. More importantly, they are a patient’s health advocate to initiate preventive care aimed at reducing their risk for developing diseases.
Specialists are physicians who have undergone additional training in a specific area. They take care of acute or chronic health concerns dealing with a certain area of the body. Specialists may focus on certain systems such as the heart, lung or the kidneys.
Primary care providers play an integral role in directing patients to the right specialists. “Patients who do not start with a primary care provider are likely to go through many specialists because the symptom that they are experiencing may not indicate the issue they have,” Dr. Khatib, who practices with Premier HealthNet says. “A very good example of this is someone who is having a cough. That cough can be shared as a symptom between a lung specialist, heart specialist, a gastroenterologist and an infectious disease specialist. It is the primary care provider’s job to determine which of these areas the cough may be related to and then send them to the right specialist.”
He adds, “There are also times when certain disease processes such as HIV or rheumatoid arthritis could be handled by a primary care provider, but because the treatment options are evolving so rapidly a specialist would have the knowledge to recommend the best course of action.”
Dr. Khatib says patients play a much more integral role in their health care today than in past generations thanks to the amount of health information at their fingertips. While primary care providers are needed for their expertise in navigating care, patients can take an active role in making the final decision.
“Patients have access to medical information in a way they didn’t before,” he says. “This data empowers them to decide what they want to do and where they want to go to have it done. I had a patient who had prostate cancer and spent a lot of time educating himself on his different treatment options and possible specialists. Providers start the process, but the patient is the one who ultimately determines which path to take.”
Patient involvement is a vital part of successful health care. In the past, providers may have assumed patients agreed and understood their course of treatment, when in reality they may not have been on the same page and as a result failed to follow through on the physician’s recommendations, Dr. Khatib says.
“The worst thing we used to do as providers is give orders to patients and the patient would end up not following them because they were not convinced it was the right answer. The entire care process can be interrupted if the patient isn’t on board with it,” he says. “Today we are realizing that every patient is different and they have to be really involved in what they do in order to make this a successful process.”
For more information on primary care and specialty providers or to find a Premier HealthNet healthcare provider near you, visit www.premierhealthnet.com/provider.
About the Author