Patients With Primary Care Docs May Get Better Health Care

One way to get better medical care and more value for your health care dollars is to find yourself a primary care provider, researchers say.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 70,000 U.S. adults who took part in a Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Of those, more than 49,000 had a primary care doctor and about 21,000 did not.

Adults with primary care were more likely to receive high-value cancer screenings, such as colonoscopy or mammography (78 percent with primary care versus 67 percent without). They also received more diagnostic and preventive tests, such as flu vaccination and blood pressure checks.