PMH and Your Medical Care

Your Premium Medical Home provides preventive care and physical examination, often covered by insurance.  But unlike the ‘executive physical’, our examinations are based on avoiding both under-treatment and over-treatment.  We base our annual checkup on decades of experience and careful study of generally accepted guidelines for preventive care, such as those of the  American Cancer Society or the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

And we offer more.  After an ‘executive physical’, you walk away with a report, but who will be your doctor if you need follow-up care or if you get sick?  PMH provides you with care all year, not just for the day or two you might spend at an executive physical.  It is the opinion of many that the ‘executive physical’ by itself does not improve the overall quality of medical care, but all agree that good primary care serves the patient’s best interests.

We are all susceptible: our good health and spirits can be troubled by illness.  We need our physician to fully consider our symptoms, perform a physical exam, provide for objective testing like laboratory or radiography, to consider the differential diagnosis and recommend its treatment.

This service of evaluating and treating an acute medical illness is covered by most insurance and Medicare.  We know, however, that some patients prefer that their acute problem will be evaluated, diagnosed, and treated by experienced, board certified physicians and not by physician extenders.  At PMH, the expertise, education, and training of a board certified and licensed physician is at your service during every visit.

When we are sick, time can be hard on us.  At PMH, our goal is that your medical questions be promptly addressed.  The first step can be:

• A same-day appointment
• A walk-in appointment
• A phone call directly to your doctor
• Email or text to your doctor

After the doctor’s evaluation, testing and treatment recommendations will be made.  The doctor or nurse will describe the expected course of your illness.  It is your responsibility to follow the doctor’s directions and to report unexpected events, persistence or worsening of symptoms.  Results of laboratory or x-ray studies will be reported to you.  If you do not receive such results, call your doctor within three days to inquire about the delay.  If consultation with other physicians is requested, then PMH staff will discuss consultant reports and recommendations with you.

Acute illnesses may be cared for at home, in the office, in the emergency room, or in the hospital.  At PMH, your doctor is familiar with the hospitals, laboratories, and x-ray facilities that may be used in your evaluation.  At your Premium Medical Home, your doctor can personally choose the sub-specialist physicians or surgeons needed.  The choice will be based on personal knowledge of the practice and reputation of the consultant, not based simply on insurance lists.

Geriatric patients are persons over the age of 50 who suffer chronic functional impairment caused by illness, injury, or age.  The Premium Medical Home is an enhanced setting for geriatric care.  The geriatric patient usually will be seen by multiple physicians and has often been hospitalized and requires home care and rehabilitation.  In other offices, the care may be fragmented, with multiple physicians providing care and no one physician able to follow the patient across different levels of care, coordinate care, and then provide that information in a centralized and accessible fashion. The Premium Medical Home seeks to follow the patient across many levels of care. However, such convenience, enhanced access via e-mail and cell phone and limited practice size are services not covered by Medicare.  The PMH Subscription allows these innovative services to be made available to the patient in a reasonable fashion.  You can buy a PMH Subscription for your parent or loved one to have new, enhanced, and more convenient communication between you, your loved one, your family, and the doctor at a low annual cost.

Persons suffering chronic disease often suffer fragmented care.  Care may be provided in different hospitals, or even different cities.  Multiple specialists are involved in their care, and it is unusual, though welcomed, when one specialist takes particular and primary care interest in a patient.  But that is the exception, not the rule.

The Premium Medical Home provides patients with chronic illness a single physician, who will coordinate care across different specialties and sites and locations of care.  The PMH physician discusses specialty care with your consultants.  He or she also serves as the resource you, your family, and your other doctors will rely on for care of serious chronic medical needs.