Why your Family Physician Remains your Trusted Source in Turbulent Healthcare Times | Eastern North Carolina Now

    In a society filled with noise, it's tough to discern who's really on your side.

    This couldn't be more true than in the healthcare industry today. Changes coming from Washington and even Raleigh have spun confusion among Americans unsure about the future of their family's healthcare. And an ever-streaming political narrative has hijacked confidence in our healthcare system.

    In this turbulent time, having a medical home couldn't be more important. As family physicians, our core value is the relationship and lifelong care we provide to your entire family. When you hear the term primary care, this is what it means: lifelong and continuous care. Study after study prove that access to primary care improves outcomes while reducing costs. In fact, one study found that having a primary care physician reduced the odds of bad outcomes by 19 percent, while reducing medical costs by 33 percent.

    In talking primary care in your community, consider the following:

• Access to primary care throughout North Carolina is critically important. In both urban and rural communities, where there are more primary care physicians, the community experiences lower infant mortality rates, higher birth weights and higher immunization rates. Tell your policy makers to support primary care.
• Access to primary care has proven success from birth to end of life. Elderly patients who rely on primary care first have fewer hospitalizations, fewer emergency departments visits and lower overall healthcare costs, especially related to end of life care.
• Access to primary care is even positively associated with successful preventative care, including smoking cessation and influenza immunization.

    So, as you navigate this next round of healthcare changes, remember that having a family physician is a life-long relationship that brings better health. And know that no matter how difficult the national healthcare landscape is to understand, that family physicians remain your most trusted source of primary care. Family physicians: your trusted source.

• Contact: Charles Rhodes, MD
•     NC Academy of Family Physicians