A healthy lifestyle can help you reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke, and other chronic conditions. While the benefits are compelling, healthy living is not always easy for people to achieve on their own. This is not anyone’s fault. It’s often challenging to know what’s healthy and what isn’t, what will fit into your schedule and what won’t, and what you should eat and what you should avoid. That’s where your primary care doctor can help, guiding you towards healthier decisions based on your own personal habits, preferences, and goals.
At a Direct Primary Care (DPC) clinic, patients enjoy specific benefits that can make a healthier lifestyle easier to achieve and more long lasting. Because Direct Primary Care physicians are able to spend more time with their patients than traditional primary care doctors, they get to know their patients better and come to understand patients’ health more completely. This means that patients get more comprehensive support tailored to their health, their habits, and their goals.
How a Direct Primary Care Doctor Helps You Live a Healthier Life
What constitutes a “healthy” life will vary from patient to patient. However, there will certainly be some general guidelines that physicians will recommend patients adhere to. As you get to know your Direct Primary Care doctor, they will better be able to help you make healthier decisions. This can take several forms:
Eating a Healthy Diet
Traditional primary care doctors only get a few minutes per appointment. When it comes to a healthy diet, all they really have time to say is something generic like “eat fewer fatty foods and more vegetables”, which is both valid and vague. Most people understand that such a balanced diet is the ideal; they just aren’t sure how to achieve that ideal.
When your physician is a DPC doctor, they’ll be able to spend more time getting to know you, including your nutrition goals and your eating habits. This can help you make more knowledgeable decisions about what to eat and what to avoid in a way that makes sense for your life. This more individualized approach can help you better navigate dietary challenges and improve the way you eat, which may have a positive impact on your wellness for years to come. DPC physicians do not replace dieticians or nutritionists, but after a discussion, your DPC doctor can make an informed recommendation to one, if that’s needed.
Keeping Track of Your Mental Health
Mental health can be exceptionally challenging to substantively cover when all you get is fifteen minutes with your traditional primary care provider once a year. Because Direct Primary Care providers spend more time with their patients, they’re able to provide more thorough and more individually informed advice. This can help your physician better understand what can help you and when you may need a referral to more specialized mental health care.
Help with Medication Management
Patients take medications for a wide variety of reasons. In some cases, they help treat acute conditions; in others, medication is designed to manage chronic conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, or even high blood pressure.
Direct Primary Care doctors have the ability to spend more time with patients than their traditional counterparts. They can also see their patients more often without copays or insurance interference. This means a Direct Primary Care doctor is going to be able to spend more time with patients who need to manage medication and chronic conditions. This can include:
- Helping patients take steps to acquire the right medication for their condition.
- Taking time to help patients understand how to use their medication or when to take it.
- Teaching patients how to manage their underlying condition. In some cases, this may help the patient get healthy enough that they can stop taking the medication. For example, a patient who is taking high blood pressure medication may be able to stop taking that medication if they are able to successfully manage their blood pressure through changes to diet and exercise.
- Help patients stay on top of vaccine schedules and seasonal vaccinations, such as influenza and Covid-19.
Help Patients Manage Physical Health
Everyone walks into their primary care doctor’s office with a different level of physical health. Some individuals are very active; others less so. At a Direct Primary Care clinic, patients will have the opportunity to work with their doctor to assess their physical health more completely, better understand how they can improve their physical health, and collaborate on what activities might suit their daily life in complementary ways. For some patients, this might include a recommendation for regular stretching. For others, it might mean encouragement to start strength training. With more time to assess your level of physical capabilities, a DPC physician can make good recommendations that are appropriate to reach your goals.
Every patient receives recommendations in line with their physical fitness and their health and wellness goals.
Keeping Your Health Up to Date
Staying healthy is a lifelong endeavor. Because they are able to spend more time with patients, Direct Primary Care doctors are particularly well suited to helping patients live a healthier lifestyle.
If you want to know more about Direct Primary Care at Progressive Health Primary Care, contact us today!