February 6, 2025- Yalda Jabbarpour, MD is a firm believer that primary care is not only essential to the health and well-being of every patient in the U.S., but it’s the backbone of the entire healthcare system. “Everyone in their lifetime will see a primary care clinician,” she said. Indeed, good primary care is essential for population and individual health, said Dr. Jabbarpour, a family physician and director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies.
From a population perspective, studies have shown that good primary care leads to higher life expectancy, lower healthcare costs, and better health equity. “I think that has been proven repeatedly in the literature, and it is the only medical specialty to have those three findings,” she said. “Primary care is absolutely essential to the health of the population.
“On an individual level,” she continued, “if you talk to anyone who has a good relationship with a long-term primary care doctor, they will tell you that it is absolutely invaluable in terms of their health and wellness, just having that person who knows them, knows their history, that they can turn to for questions or they can turn to when it’s a scary diagnosis and they need help navigating that.”
For individuals who don’t have a primary care doctor because they can’t get access to one, it is challenging to navigate the healthcare system and get timely care when they need it. Often their health ends up spiraling. They may frequent the ER or get in to see specialists too late when their diagnoses could have been prevented with treatment from a primary care physician.
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