PCP stands for primary care physician.  These are physicians whose specialty gives them training in broad areas of medicine that enable them to diagnose most of the common illnesses that people develop.  When they can’t treat the condition themselves because of the limitation of the depth of their knowledge or skills, they will refer the patient to the appropriate specialist.  For infants and children, pediatricians and family practitioners serve as PCPs.  Adults have internists and family practitioners as their PCPs.  All three of these primary care specialties spend three years after medical school graduation learning their specialty.   So, for three years an internist in training focuses on adult medicine, a pediatrician in training studies pediatrics exclusively.  A doctor learning family practice spends their three years learning pediatrics, adult medicine, obstetrics and surgery.  Training for the medical subspecialties such as cardiology or gastroenterology requires several more years of training after the three years of internal medicine.  A similar progression of training takes place for surgical subspecialties beyond general surgical training.

In essence a PCP is trained to provide preventive care, make diagnoses, treat what he can and refer the rest.  They serve a role in coordinating their patient’s care and that can be invaluable.  They will recommend what screening tests and immunizations are appropriate for each of their patients based upon their age, gender and other factors.  Though there are times when you may need the expertise of subspecialists such as a cardiologist or an orthopedic surgeon, they don’t have the broader perspective of the PCP in regard to prevention.

It pays to have a PCP not just for prevention but also for acute medical problems such as colds, sore throats, rashes, body aches and pains.  While these can be diagnosed and treated in an emergency room, there are definite disadvantages to going to the ER.  First of all most health insurance plans will require you to pay more when you go to the ER rather than a physician’s office.  I’m aware of health plans where the copay for a doctor’s office visit is $25 and the ER visit copay is $250!  In addition, you can’t make an appointment for the ER so you can wait in the waiting room for hours while patients with more serious (and infectious) problems get seen before you.  Lastly, the ER physician usually views you as a single visit and doesn’t have the same preventive perspective as a PCP does.

In the next post I’ll talk about things to consider in identifying your PCP.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob