The combination of Primary Care Medicine with Urgent Care is termed Hybrid Medical Care. This is a new phenomenon spreading across the country in response to the patient demand for quick acute care combined with longitudinal primary care for chronic illnesses such as Hypertension, Diabetes and Chronic Lung diseases.
Here is a little known secret with regards to our office in Ludlow: Our practice has adopted Hybrid Care for the past twenty years. We were ahead of the nation dating back to the 1990s. Did you ever notice that whenever you called our office with an ear ache or sprained ankle, you were scheduled for an appointment that day? For those of you working during the day shift, that included evening hours and/or Saturdays.
You may have forgotten that your Tetanus is up to date. You’d be surprised by how many patients come to our practice for a blood pressure and cholesterol check and received a second unnecessary Tetanus injection at the local urgent care center. Again, the added benefit of going to a Hybrid Medical Practice such as ours is that we have your medical history. In other words….”We know you!” More importantly, you know us too.
Unlike a typical Urgent Care Center where anyone can enter the waiting room, we decided years ago that our Urgent Care would ONLY serve our own patients. That way we can combine the urgent need as well as the preventive and chronic needs of that patient. We also try to avoid sending patients to the emergency room and attempt direct specialty referrals if possible (such as orthopedics for bone fractures). The copayments and insurance coverage savings would be an added bonus.
To stay ahead of this nation-wide two prong hybrid approach to medical care, our practice decided to go one step further with “three” dimensional or 3-D care. That would include, Acute Care, Chronic Care and Preventive Care.