Implementing Advanced Primary Care In Onsite Clinics

The current sick-care system is tough to navigate and is fraught with complexity and insecurity. The majority of patients, anxious about high costs, avoid seeing their primary care provider, which often leads to more serious issues that require an ER visit or expensive treatments.

Add the inconvenience of waiting to make an appointment, too-short visits, and being bounced around between specialists and medical facilities—it’s no wonder that many patients are left feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.

But what if you could make it easier, more enriching, and more convenient for patients to access healthcare? And what if that healthcare model was built on time-rich appointments, empathetic listening, and strong provider-patient relationships?

That’s what advanced primary care (APC) provides, and on-site clinics, or care centers, are a perfect delivery vehicle.

Download Now: Advanced Primary Care: The Front Line of a Health Revolution

Why advanced primary care?

In the current system — which relies on transactional, incident-based interactions between patients and physicians and focuses on symptoms — most people see a doctor only when they’re feeling sick, and only when the situation seems serious enough to rationalize the cost of a visit.

APC takes that experience and upends it, centering whole patient health, emphasizing preventive care, and using behavior change to help patients achieve greater physical, psychosocial, and emotional well-being. Patients are tended to by a dedicated primary care team that takes the time to get to know them, understand their concerns, and offer a path forward to better health.

It also comes with a host of other benefits:

• Accessibility to more providers, smart scheduling, low- to no-cost visits, convenient locations, and no wait times
• Empathetic listening that goes beyond prescriptive medicine, building connections and understanding of a person’s whole health
• Time-rich appointments that allow people to be heard and providers to understand them beyond their symptoms
• A powerful informatics platform that identifies health risk opportunities and provides actionable insight into utilization
• Care coordination to prevent gaps in communication and treatment when specialty care is appropriate, including follow-up and integration into the member’s care plan
• Whole health coaches who use the transtheoretical model to guide patients through each step of behavior change
• Culture change as patients take control of their own health and make lifestyle choices, learn new habits, and achieve their goals

How APC is delivered at an on-site care center

Care centers provide a convenient and accessible hub for APC delivery, where patients can meet with dedicated providers, allied medical staff, health coaches, and other team members who will take the time necessary to form strong relationships with them, understand their underlying issues, and provide the necessary treatment and guidance to help them achieve better health.

Here, patients can receive most of the healthcare services they’ll ever need, including:

1) Planned Care

Providing annual whole health evaluations, comprehensive physical exams, biometric screenings, health risk assessments, injections and immunizations, travel medicine, and provider-dispensed medications. On-site labs and coordination of specialty care also increase the convenience of patient visits.

2) Unplanned Care

Treating illness and serious injuries quickly, with episodic sick and urgent care. The primary team will provide care for suturing and basic wounds, sprains, infections, colds and upper respiratory issues, urinary tract issues, and asthma.

3) Health Coaching

Facilitating lasting lifestyle and behavior change that improves health. Vera’s health coaches are an integral part of the primary care team, trained in empathetic listening and the transtheoretical behavior change model. They provide the guidance and support patients need to own and manage their own health.

4) Disease Management

Managing the chronic medical conditions of high-risk, high-cost patients through education. The primary care team helps affected patients understand their disease, its causes, exacerbating factors, ways to avoid worsening the condition, and how to manage their health for improved quality of life.

5) Occupational Health

Protecting your workplace and employees with medical services that treat work-related injuries and provide care coordination, employment assessments, drug and CDL testing, and workplace safety.

Patients will also have access to medical insight and guidance from anywhere they are. They can schedule a visit, explore services, and view medical records, charts, and other information simply with an easy-to-use mobile app or speak with a medical professional via telehealth services.

How it improves health and drives down costs

Patients who have access to a wide network of care and a primary care team they can trust — not just for immediate treatment, but for information, guidance, and coaching — will be more engaged in learning to make informed, proactive steps toward managing their own health.

With a variety of convenient services at hand, they're also less likely to need expensive emergency or urgent care. Better outcomes drive down overall healthcare costs, claims, and extended hospital stays while simultaneously boosting health, patient satisfaction, and productivity.

The results are impressive:

• 17-21% reduction in total healthcare costs
• 34% reduction in inpatient claims
• 31% reduction in primary care claims
• 1.44:1 ROI in the first year
• 67-82% patient engagement
• 4.7/5 patient satisfaction rating

Advanced primary care and on-site care centers are a powerful investment in population health that provides returns long into the future. It’s a revolution in health that delivers the right care at the right cost.

Ready to learn more? Download our FREE eBook, Advanced Primary Care: The Front Line of a Health Revolution.