What Is a Family Practice Doctor?
Family practice doctors provide care to people of all ages. These generalists treat chronic conditions, evaluate symptoms, offer preventative care, and let people know when they need to see a specialist.
Family practice doctors often work in private office settings or with a group of other family practice doctors. They also work for community medicine clinics and in hospital settings.
Many family doctors provide care to underserved populations in areas where there are limited community resources and high levels of illiteracy and poverty.
What Does a Family Practice Doctor Do?
Family physicians who work in community health settings deliver a wide range of care services. Among other things, they offer:
- Routine checkups, including well-baby and child visits
- Health risk assessments
- Immunizations
- Screening tests
- Healthy lifestyle counseling
- Treatment of common chronic conditions
Family practice doctors can also specialize in areas including sports medicine, emergency and urgent care, and public health. Doctors provide general and coordinate with specialists as needed.
Reasons to See a Family Practice Doctor
You can see a family practice doctor may also help you with:
Chronic disease management
Family medicine doctors can treat and monitor various chronic diseases and conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), kidney disease, heart disease, high cholesterol, arthritis, skin problems, and breathing issues caused by conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
They can also prescribe refills for medications to treat chronic conditions, often coordinating with specialists.
Referrals to medical specialists
If you have a condition that may require a specialist, such as a heart condition, a visit to a family medicine doctor is often a good place to start. Your family doctor can recommend and suggest qualified specialists. When you begin treatment with a specialist, the doctors can work together to coordinate your prescriptions and monitor your condition.
Some insurance policies require you to get a referral to a specialist from a family physician or internist to qualify for specialty coverage.
Care for illness or injury
When you or a family member is sick or injured, a family medicine doctor can often treat the condition independently, without the need for specialist intervention. Examples include simple fractures and sprains, flu and cold symptoms, pneumonia and bronchitis, stomach viruses, seasonal allergies, ear infections, and so on.
Routine exams
Family medicine doctors perform various routine exams, including annual physicals, newborn and well-child checkups, sports physicals, men’s health screenings including prostate exams, and female pelvic exams, including annual pap smears.
What to Expect at a Family Practice Doctor Appointment
What you can expect will depend on why you have come in for the visit. Your doctor may perform:
- Checking vital signs (blood pressure, body temperature, heartbeat, and breathing rate)
- Requesting routine Blood tests to screen you for conditions like high cholesterol or diabetes
- A head and neck exam
- Abdominal exam
- Immunizations
- Skin exam
- Women’s health screenings like pap smears, osteoporosis screening, mammogram referrals, and sexual health screening
- Men’s health screenings like prostate exams, aortic aneurysm screenings, colorectal exam referrals
- Infant and child screenings to evaluate growth
Supreme Medical Center Family Medicine Clinic
The family medicine doctors at Supreme Medical Center offer personalized care to all of our patients. These physicians are trained to care for and treat patients of all ages. We work hard to ensure every patient we treat feels comfortable while we are diagnosing and treating their health conditions. Family care doctors make for excellent primary care physicians because they can treat patients from childhood into late adulthood, giving them the ability to see a patient’s medical history first hand. If you are looking for a primary care doctor to offer quality health care to you or your family in the Houston area, contact Supreme Medical Center today.
Best Family Medicine Clinic in Houston
At Supreme Medical Center we believe a happy life begins with a healthy body and mind. Our goal is to ensure each one of our patients reaches their goals by eliminating medical concerns and issues that have the potential to stand in their way with quality preventive care and treatment.
We work with our patients to ensure they are being heard and are treated with respect and care. Schedule an appointment with our team today to learn how Supreme Medical Center stands out from the other medical groups you have worked with.
Supreme Medical Center
350 N Sam Houston Pkwy E
Suite B240
Houston, TX 77060
281-809-5470
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