By nearly every measure, America’s healthcare system is broken. We rank near the top in death rates from treatable or avoidable ailments, we pay more for care than our peer nations, and our population is both growing and aging.
Fixing these and other problems will take a dramatic new approach. That approach is the Advanced Primary Care (APC) model.
In our new eBook, we take a deep dive into the benefits of APC and why both new and veteran providers should embrace the model in order to better serve patients and themselves.
Here’s an excerpt:
“At its core, APC is all about healthcare as it should be: focused on higher-quality care, increased patient engagement, and utilizing data to improve overall population health.
In contrast to the current system that relies on transactional and incident-based interactions between patients and physicians, APC is a much more proactive and comprehensive approach.
The driving force behind this approach is the idea of whole health — building a foundation for patients that encourages a healthy lifestyle and leveraging data to understand social determinants that affect large populations and create risks.
APC reframes primary care, making it the heart of health management rather than a gatekeeper for specialist diagnosis and treatment. Patients are able to see a doctor quickly, receive thorough and thoughtful care from someone who knows them, and get follow-up support after seeing other experts and providers.
The tenets of the model are:
- Accessibility to more providers, smart scheduling, low- to no-cost visits, convenient locations, and no wait times
- Time-rich appointments that allow people to be heard and providers to understand them beyond their symptoms
- Empathetic listening that goes beyond prescriptive medicine, building connections and understanding a person’s whole health
- Primary care providers who have the time, support, and staff to provide most of a person’s care — care that in today’s system is being outsourced to specialists
- Care coordination to prevent gaps in communication and treatment when specialty care is appropriate.
- An informatics platform that identifies health risk opportunities and provides actionable insight into utilization
- Professional health coaches who use the Transtheoretical Change Model to help patients improve their lifestyles and achieve life goals
- Culture change from people seeing their care team as an extension of their friends and family and the powerful realization that they, themselves, are in control of their own health
Beyond individual patients, APC has been proven to bring down the total cost of care. This is critical given that just last year, Gallup found that 38% of Americans had put off or skipped outright medical care due to cost.
Such a shamefully high percentage should not happen in a developed nation, let alone the United States. And while substantial — arguably wholesale — change absolutely needs to happen to the entire healthcare system, any steps taken to promote better overall health among the population is an important step.
APC, through empowering patients to take control of their health and fostering proactive engagement with their healthcare providers, results in fewer insurance claims and lowered costs for the entire healthcare system.”
Learn more about APC and how it benefits providers, patients, and America’s healthcare as a whole. Download our free eBook, You Can Help Improve America’s Healthcare System.
