Some of the essential tips to staying healthy are eating nutritious foods and doing regular exercises to keep fit. Aside from this, you also need to do your best to prevent, diagnose, and treat illnesses before they take hold.
One of the best ways to do this is by paying a regular visit to a Primary Care Physician for checkups. For primary care physicians use this link.
Who Is A Primary Care Physician?
Typically, they are a medical doctor trained to help prevent, diagnose, and also treat a wide range of injuries and illnesses. They can help with chronic and long-term health issues like hypertension, as well as acute health problems like allergic reactions, flu, malaria, etc.
Meanwhile, here are some essential reasons why you need a primary care physician:
Protection Against The Damage By Chronic Inflammation
According to scientific research, chronic low-grade inflammation can become a silent killer as it contributes to cancer, cardiovasÂcular disease, type 2 diabetes, and other conditions. Thankfully, a primary care provider can detect and arrest all of these before it becomes a problem.
Importantly, adults with primary care are more likely to have a routine preventive visit and fill more prescriptions. They’re also significantly more likely to receive more high-value care such as cancer screenings, including colorectal cancer screening and mammography.
Appropriate Medical Plan
A primary care physician is in the best position to help you design a health care plan since they have a good sense of your current healthcare needs and who you are. So when you’re planning to visit your primary care physician, you need to gather your medication lists, insurance information, and previous medical records. Even during this visit, your primary care physician can inform you of other essential things to look out for when preparing for your next visit. Paying visits to your primary care physician is essential to address multiple symptoms, conditions, or concerns.Â
A medical plan is not all about medications and tests. It involves understanding the peculiar problems of patients and addressing those issues. In other words, a primary care physician knows about your medical history, and will be in a position to prescribe treatment plans that will not have adverse side-effects on your well-being. They will also be able to help you with a swallowing gel if you are not comfortable when it comes to taking medications naturally with water.Â
Choosing A PCP Team
When you choose a good primary care physician, such a person can help you create an ideal PCP team. A PCP team consists of pharmacists, medical assistants, social workers, and nurses. People with chronic medical illnesses need a PCP team that can help with all aspects of their health. Even if you’re healthy, it shouldn’t stop you from establishing a relationship with a PCP who can help you meet your health care goals. For this reason, you have to ensure the primary care physician you choose is qualified to render medical services.
What Health Conditions Do Primary Care Physicians treat?
Whether you have flu, diabetes, need vaccinations, want to lose weight, or quit smoking, you can rely on the expertise of a primary care physician. These experts are trained to manage all aspects of healthcare. They can help manage your health by providing wellness screenings and immunization and enlightening you on preventive care methods of all sorts. They work in clinics, private practices, outpatient hospital settings, long-term care facilities, inpatient hospital settings, and group practices.
Things to Expect During Your First Meeting With A Primary Care Physician
The expert will focus on information that enables them to understand your medical needs. They’ll be highly interested in knowing your medical history and your current medical status to prepare an ideal medical plan for you. They also conduct a general medical exam on patients during their initial visit to their office.
Later on, other visits will be centered on developing strategies to meet specific healthcare goals like treating an illness. To assist your physician, make a list of questions about any symptoms you are experiencing before you visit their office.
Education And Training
Primary health care physicians are required to earn an undergraduate degree in pre-med or the sciences from an approved school after their high school program. Furthermore, they need to graduate from an accredited medical school with osteopathic medicine or medicine degrees. They also need to pass board exams for either Levels 1 and 2 of the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination of the United States (COMPLEX-USA) or Steps 1 and 2 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). After that, they’ll need to complete clinical instruction or core clerkships and finish a residency program with required rotations in general surgery, inpatient hospital care, pediatrics, obstetrics, and emergency medicine.
As they get to the end of their residency, they have to apply for a license in their state that will allow them to practice as a board-certified family doctor. They’re also required to take an exam, either by the American Osteopathic Board of Family Physicians or the American Board of Family Medicine, to get their certification. A physician’s training is only complete when they have met the requirements listed above and are registered under the state in which they will practice.
