What is advanced primary care?

Traditional onsite clinics do well at replicating and replacing local primary care—essentially taking a broken model and bringing it to you.

The problem is, today’s version of primary care remains transactional, limited in clinical scope, and disengaged when patient diagnoses call for specialists. Following that model, traditional onsite clinics are simply unable to deliver on promises of high patient engagement, lower healthcare costs, and better overall outcomes.

What is Advanced Primary Care?

Advanced Primary Care is a practice methodology that focuses on quality of care and improved health outcomes rather than patient volume or other traditional clinic measures. In an Advanced Primary Care clinic, physicians are empowered to care without compromise® and practice medicine the way they trained. This means that doctors are able to able to spend more time with patients and practice broad-scope primary care in-house instead of referring patients to specialists for minor health issues. In fact, an Advanced Primary Care practice maximizes reverse referrals to keep costs low. When a patient does require specialist care, an Advanced Primary Care clinic delivers high-quality care coordination, remaining connected to and involved with their patient throughout the entire spectrum of care.

How Proactive MD Practices Advanced Primary Care

Proactive MD elevates the standard of primary care. We call it Advanced Primary Care. A physician-based, onsite Health & Wellness Center is foundational. Our clinical team practices broad-scope medicine, getting to know their patients personally in the process. Patients can visit their primary care physician for routine annual physicals, acute care, more complex chronic conditions, and everything in between.

In addition, we expand the traditional onsite healthcare model by integrating dedicated Patient Advocacy Services. Our wellness centers extend far beyond simple community referrals and instead employ a risk-stratified patient engagement model that tailors to individual care needs. By serving patients through every step of their healthcare journey, we can help them navigate complex and costly diagnoses, making our service model uniquely transformational.

Advanced Primary Care models bring together all pieces of the healthcare system, making them more accessible and understandable for patients. Our Proactive MD Health & Wellness Centers practice this level of care, providing personalized, compassionate, informative, and affordable support when navigating the healthcare system. For example, through our Patient Advocacy Services we may help patients understand their benefits outside of our clinic, locate affordable home health resources for patients recovering from major surgery, or educate patients about preventive health and wellness. Whatever it takes to treat the whole person.

	Traditional Onsite Healthcare	Advanced Primary Care
The Clinical Care Model	Relies on onsite clinicians to engage patients—which often doesn’t occur or occurs sporadically because the clinicians are busy treating patients.	Prioritizes the physician-patient relationship and employs a dedicated Patient Advocate to engage and educate patients, understand the social determinants of care, and provide support throughout the entire continuum of care. Cares for patients both inside and outside the onsite clinic.
Patient Engagement	Typically operates in a react and respond mode, seeing patients when they come in, when they are sick, or when they have a health crisis.	A proactive model that uses risk stratified data to engage the right patients at the right time in order to prevent health crises.
Scope of Medicine	Practices a narrow scope of medicine onsite, similar to an Urgent Care facility or Minute Clinic.	Practices broad-scope primary care medicine onsite, including annual exams, sick visits, onsite labs and immunizations, onsite pharmacy, chronic condition management, and wellness & nutrition coaching.
Referrals / Complex Diagnoses	Does not provide a solution for complex diagnoses. May offer a second opinion referral services at an additional cost. Operates as a referral engine; disengaged from the patient after making the referral.	Manages and follows-up with patient referrals. Ensures patient is prepared for specialist visit. Guides patients with complex and costly medical conditions through nationwide, industry-leading, second opinion network so patients receive the highest-quality care at all times.
Overall Impact on the Cost of Healthcare	The intent is to improve patient health, thereby driving down costs. However, with low patient engagement and no comprehensive solution for complex diagnoses, many onsite clinics are only able to impact the cost of the services provided onsite.	Impacts the total cost of healthcare by improving care and reducing costs for all diagnoses.

Healthcare Updates

Advanced Primary Care: Broadening the scope of employer-sponsored healthcare.