Family Medicine: Your Medical Home

Medical Home                When you or a loved one is sick, you don't want                     to go shopping for doctors. And you probably don't                     want a first-date experience every time you need a                physician. Most likely, you just want to go home. When you visit your family physician, you're coming to your "medical home." You know your doctor. Your doctor knows you. And he or she can provide the kind of care you need. Your medical home tracks your health history, provides immunizations to keep you well and appropriate treatment when you're sick, and helps smooth the path if you face a life-changing chronic condition. Too often, people without medical homes go to an urgent care center for strep throat, an emergency room for a knee injury and a sub-specialist for chronic ear infections. They have no single source for a complete list of their medications or a history of annual check up results. A medical home is vital for good health care. A family doctor helps prevent the patient having to overcome various hurdles in communicating complicated medical information and history from one new doctor to another. Because no one doctor has a the whole picture, it increases a patient's risk for missed diagnoses, misdiagnoses, and unnecessary tests. When you have a medical home, your doctor knows your and your family's complete health status. This complete knowledge enables your family doctor to provide important details about your needs which you might not remember or know are important to other health care providers on your treatment team. Excerpts from "Why you need a medical home" by Leslie Champlin American Academy of Family Physicians Journal