Who Will Provide Your Care?
Each patient in HCA has a primary care physician (PCP). Your PCP coordinates your care along with members of your care team. Since HCA is affiliated with BIDMC and Harvard Medical School, medical, nursing, and social work students may participate in your care. We are a major training site for medical residents, doctors specializing in internal medicine. All our resident physicians and students are extremely skilled and closely supervised by our staff physicians, nurse practitioners, and social workers.
HCA is organized into multi-disciplinary teams to better serve our patients. Team caregivers consider not only the physical, but also the psychological, social, economic, and educational issues that may contribute to your health. As a patient here, you will have the support and knowledge of your entire HCA team.
If your PCP is unavailable when you call, another caregiver on your team can address your needs. Many of our physicians participate in clinical teaching or research programs that contribute to excellent patient care.
In addition to your PCP, other team members include the following:
- Nurse practitioners play a vital role in your medical care and work closely with your physician. Nurse practitioners are advanced practice registered nurses certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. They take health histories, give physical exams, diagnose and treat acute and chronic illness, and prescribe medications. Their focus is on wellness, health promotion, and education.
- Registered clinical nurses work closely with you and all members of your team to assist with questions and to determine how best to meet your immediate health care needs between regularly scheduled appointments.
- Pharmacists
- Interns/residents are medical doctors who recently graduated from medical school. They are in the first year of a three-year residency at BIDMC. When these doctors transition into the second and third year of the residency program, they are called residents.
- General Medicine fellows are graduates of residency programs who are doing additional training in public health and research methods. While in training, residents and fellows are supervised by HCA staff physicians.
- Community resource specialists are knowledgeable about support services in the community. They facilitate communication between community-based services and medical providers; help patients apply for benefit and entitlement programs; coordinate transportation; and make referrals to services such as meal programs, substance abuse treatment, child care, home services, emergency shelters, and education/employment training.
- Support personnel also enhance your experience with us. Practice assistants greet patients, prepare appointment paperwork, answer phones, help schedule follow-up visits or specialty appointments, and may assist your physician during an exam. Behind the scenes, administrative assistants and office managers monitor systems to improve the efficiency of our practice.
If you have any mental health needs…
- Licensed clinical social workers have Master’s degrees in clinical social work and are licensed therapists. They treat a full range of mental health conditions, including:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Stress disorders
- Marital problem
- Substance abuse
- Eating disorders
