DocTalk: The Importance of a medical home
A medical home is what serves as a primary care facility for a patient. Ideally, your primary care would service the patient as a whole, meaning medical, dental and behavioral health. Dr. Emily Vuchetich, Midtown Health Center’s Chief Medical Officer, says a medical home is important because all of a patients’ care is coordinated from one place.
“It is possible that a person may have specific problems that require a specialist’s care, but one person should be looking out for the whole picture,” Dr. Vuchetich said. “Any clinic can take care of any medical problem. However, coordinating care cannot be done in a piecemeal way.”
Dr. Vuchetich explains that establishing a medical home is the best way to get the most out of a medical experience, a medical home knows its patients on a deeper level than an acute care clinic can. For example, Dr. Vuchetich said, a medical home knows its patients’ medical history and would know that if they come in for high blood pressure, maybe the patient doesn’t need more medication but to see a counselor due to stress or anxiety.
“When you come in for an earache we know that your parents and your older siblings have had ear tubes placed and that if you have an infection today it is your 5th and it is time to see an ENT,” Dr. Vuchetich said.
Establishing a medical home is important for patients to receive the best quality care. “Midtown is an excellent choice for a medical home because we have it all – medical, dental and behavioral health all in one place,” Dr. Vuchetich said.
Consider finding a medical home that is right for you and where you feel comfortable. Medical homes are crucial to overall patient care, as Dr. Vuchetich explained, “we can catch things while they are small and manageable before they become big problems.”
Next month the providers a Midtown Health Center will be talking about the Importance of behavioral health for children over summer months.
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Midtown Health Center’s DocTalk is a collaborative effort of the Dr. Emily Vuchetich, Chief Medical Officer; Dr. David Seger, Chief Dental Officer; Dr. Josh Turek, Chief Behavioral Health Officer as well as Midtown’s other providers. For a full list of Midtown’s providers as well as more information about Midtown please visit Midtownhealthne.org.
