Dedicated Health Care Provider - Women

Dedicated Health Care Provider - Women in United States

United States

Having a dedicated health care provider or a provider considered to be one’s personal doctor is associated with successful health care, including improvements in management of chronic conditions, such as hypertension and high cholesterol. Primary care providers specialize in establishing long-lasting relationships with patients and are their medical point of contact. They diagnose, treat and prevent a wide variety of conditions in a way that is tailored to each patient. 

A regular provider can help with care coordination and continuity, particularly for women who often rely on at least two providers for routine care: obstetricians or gynecologists for reproductive care and primary care providers for general health care. Studies have found that women ages 20-64 with a usual place of care and usual provider are about four times more likely to receive a clinical breast exam and cervical cancer screening than women without either.

Populations of women more likely to report seeing a regular clinician for care include: 

• Older women (ages 50-64) compared with younger women (ages 18-49).
• White and Black women compared with Hispanic women. 
• Women with a household income at least 200% above the federal poverty level compared with women with a lower income. 
• Privately insured women compared with uninsured women. 
• Women living in states that expanded Medicaid compared with those living in a state without Medicaid expansion.

Strategies to increase the number of women with a dedicated health care provider include:

• Reducing barriers to care such as lack of health insurance, high cost of care, lack of services due to geography or remote options (e.g., telehealth) and lack of culturally competent care.
• Increasing primary care capacity by empowering other care providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, to provide more care and increase the capacity of the primary care system
• Reorienting health care systems to encourage patients to use primary care for new symptoms instead of seeking specialists with low-impact and high-cost procedures.

Increasing the proportion of people with a usual primary care provider is a Healthy People 2030 leading health indicator.

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Bodenheimer, Thomas S., and Mark D. Smith. 2013. “Primary Care: Proposed Solutions To The Physician Shortage Without Training More Physicians.” Health Affairs 32 (11): 1881–86. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2013.0234.

Friedberg, Mark W., Peter S. Hussey, and Eric C. Schneider. 2010. “Primary Care: A Critical Review Of The Evidence On Quality And Costs Of Health Care.” Health Affairs 29 (5): 766–72. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0025.

Long, Michelle, Brittni Frederiksen, Usha Ranji, and 2021. n.d. “Women’s Health Care Utilization and Costs: Findings from the 2020 KFF Women’s Health Survey.” Accessed September 25, 2023. https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/womens-health-care-utilization-and-costs-findings-from-the-2020-kff-womens-health-survey/.

Salganicoff, Alina, Usha Ranji, Adara Beamesderfer, and Nisha Kurani. 2014. “Women and Health Care in the Early Years of the Affordable Care Act: Key Findings from the 2013 Kaiser Women’s Health Survey.” Issue Brief. KFF. https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/report/women-and-health-care-in-the-early-years-of-the-aca-key-findings-from-the-2013-kaiser-womens-health-survey/.

Spatz, Erica S., Joseph S. Ross, Mayur M. Desai, Maureen E. Canavan, and Harlan M. Krumholz. 2010. “Beyond Insurance Coverage: Usual Source of Care in the Treatment of Hypertension and Hypercholesterolemia. Data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.” American Heart Journal 160 (1): 115–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahj.2010.04.013.

Winters, Paul, Daniel Tancredi, and Kevin Fiscella. 2010. “The Role of Usual Source of Care in Cholesterol Treatment.” The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 23 (2): 179–85. https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2010.02.090084.