Your Integrated Primary Care Team
About Our Health Care Team
At Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care (BILHPC), members of your primary care team work together to provide you with high-quality care. Our health care team includes primary care physicians (PCPs), physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, clinical pharmacists, behavioral health specialists, clinic assistants and medical assistants.
Who Are Our Primary Care Providers?
At BILHPC, our primary care providers can be family medicine, internal medicine and pediatric physicians, including Doctors of Medicine (MD) and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DO), and advanced practice providers (APP), such as nurse practitioners (NP) and physician assistants (PA).
Primary care providers are responsible for your health promotion, health maintenance, disease prevention, personalized advice and care, and to manage your overall health. Your PCP provides continuing care for your medical needs and preventive screenings to help you stay well. They also diagnose and help you manage acute medical problems and coordinate laboratory testing, imaging (radiology), and referrals to specialists if needed. If you need to be hospitalized your PCP will communicate with the emergency departments or hospitalists about your health history to assure you get the right care in the right setting and coordinate your care once you’re discharged.
BILH’s primary care providers that are MDs or DOs completed doctoral-level medical training after finishing their undergraduate studies and went on to complete a 3-4-year residency training program. All our physicians are board certified or eligible in internal medicine, pediatrics or family medicine. Their knowledge is kept up to date by practicing medicine, attending conferences and participating in continuing medical education courses.
Nurse practitioners may have either master’s or doctoral degrees. Physician assistants have master’s degrees in medicine from an accredited physician assistant program and become accredited by passing state licensing exams. Advanced practitioners’ knowledge is also kept up to date by practicing medicine, attending conferences and participating in continuing medical education courses.
Who Are Our Non-PCP Advanced Practitioners?
Some of our advanced practitioners do not practice as primary care providers but rather choose to work as part of an integrated team with our physicians to help to co-manage panels of patients. They’re able to assess, diagnose and treat all acute and chronic diseases. They provide counseling, coordinate care and educate patients about their illnesses. Like your physician, they’re able to prescribe medications, order laboratory and radiological tests and interpret those results.
We’re proud to offer integrated care to our patients. To best serve you, you may see an NP or PA for same-day care for urgent medical problems, continuing care for an ongoing chronic condition, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, and your annual physical exam. Our advanced practitioners work together with your primary care physician to ensure all your health care needs are met in a timely manner without compromising the quality of your care. Your primary care team will always discuss and coordinate your care to provide the care you need when you need it.
