Family Care Physicians Are There When You Need Them

In this day and age of growing concerns about our healthcare coverage and the expenses that go with it, we want to get the most value out of it. We’re spending every dollar as wisely as possible and choosing our doctors as best we can.

One of the things that can really hurt financially is an unexpected trip to the emergency room. A trip you might not have to make if you could see your own doctor. But it’s after hours and the only place that will take you is the emergency room at the closest hospital. Depending on the injury, you could end up spending thousands of dollars. Family care physicians who have a connection with after hours urgent care facilities could save you a great deal of money and time. The wait times alone could frustrate anyone. The wait time in hospital ERs has always been long, but between the years 2003 through 2009 there was an exceptional increase in the average time it takes to get seen by a doctor. The mean wait time went up by 25%, from what once was 46.5 minutes to 58.1 minutes.

There is a shortage of both ER doctors and family care physicians in the United States right now. In order to be able to meet our country’s demand for our healthcare utilization needs by 2025, we will need approximately 52,000 additional primary care or family care physicians all across this beautiful land. The call has been put out, and medical students are moving forward with their schooling so that they can fill that very need.

As our need for quality, affordable healthcare becomes greater, we are beginning to see a free health clinic or two in towns that may not have been able to offer such a thing in years past. A health clinic for children can help a pediatrician’s practice reach as many children as possible. A health clinic for women can become the only place a woman feels safe regarding her health. Many tests, all of them discreet, can be done at an std testing center. These kinds of procedures and quality consults are what make up a solid healthcare company. It’s the relationship with the patients that is the key. In a large and complicated ER, the doctors, try as they might, won’t be able to form the bond with you that you get from your own family care physicians.

Emergency room doctors are some of the kindest, most skilled doctors practicing medicine today, but the nature of the field is how busy things get and how quickly you must get to everyone. Depending on the day of the week and how busy it gets, some ERs must board their patients in the hallways until a bed opens up.

Thankfully, these days we have many more options than in years gone by. Starting with your family care physician, your healthcare is more able to be in your hands than ever before. Choices of care facilities as well as choice of doctors gives us each a feeling of security. A feeling that, if something happens to us, we’ll be cared for. By the year 2025, the advances in testing, prescription drugs, and treatment options will be very considerable. The new, young doctors who are on their way to gracing the medical field know they’re is challenge ahead, but they also know that they will be able to help in offering more options on how to be cared for. Specialties in medical practice offer a great deal to the public. Nowadays, when a doctor is trained to be a family practitioner they know they have a good shot at practicing in a new and exiting side of medicine.