Primary and Urgent Care Telemedicine (PUCT) Annual

There certainly is a role for “Doc in the Box" TeleMedicine access to all patients: especially those that research a condition and looking for an expert or “secondary" opinion. In other words, there is an important role to have physicians and other licensed people, with particular expertise in conditions or sub conditions, handling informational consultations, akin to free market access for anyone and everyone.

But, the real power of Primary and Urgent Care TeleMedicine (PUCT) is having your own chosen, primary care physician or other practitioner accessible who knows YOU. Such a person is a counselor-on-steroids who can guide you through issues of concern, manage your risk factors and preventive health screens, promote health and wellness, and can prescribe medications based on, what is termed in health care, Evidence-Based-Medicine.

Evidenced Based Medicine because prescriptions carry their own risks, generally over prescribed anyway, and should be prescribed only if there is evidence or arguable reason to take them.

So, your primary care provider needs to know you in order to orchestrate your Mind/Body/Spirit/LifeStyle/Social domains of Wellness, while using the power and convenience of telecommunications for video visits, to guide specialists and consultants, and to order imaging and laboratory testing in your behalf.

So in PUCT I argue the yearly physical examination, so the practitioner gets to know you better and have a chance to exam those things that are not readily apparent, such as enlarged liver or spleen, skin lesions, hidden blood flow issues, and so forth.

In many ways, Primary and Urgent Care TeleMedicine is another tool, although incredibly convenient and powerful, for your practitioner to serve you and your family in a patient-centered health economy.