Blue Quality Physician’s Program
Family Care is applying for a certification with Blue Cross Blue Shield known as the Blue Quality Physician’s Program (BQPP). This program recognizes practices and providers that demonstrate the ability to provide high quality medical services to their patients. As part of our application process, we’ve outlined some of the ways we’re helping to improve healthcare for all of our patients. If you have any questions, contact Ryan!
Advanced Care Team
Family Care’s Advanced Care Team supports the PCP in efforts to deliver effective patient centered care. An Advanced Care Team includes specialists that coordinate and work together to ensure the highest quality of care is provided throughout our practice. Advanced Care Team members are available for ALL patients in the practice, regardless of insurance.
At Family Care, our RN (Triage) and RN (Care Manager / Coordinator) is Melissa Christian, BSN, RN.
Addressing Social Determinants of Health
Family Care participates with the Track RX program, a network of TRACK Trails (hiking, disc golf, paddling, geocaching, biking, and other types of trails) designed to provide kids and families with fun outdoor recreation opportunities. Each TRACK Trail has a series of self-guided brochures that turn an ordinary outing into a fun-filled adventure. Kids register their TRACK Trail adventures through the program’s website and receive FREE prizes in the mail designed to make their next outdoor adventure more fun.
We have also identified several health needs that are especially common or concerning to our community’s patient population. To help educate our patients, Family Care hosts several classes/seminars that are available to our patients throughout the year.
The Importance of Childhood Vaccinations, with Melissa Christian, BSRN
Description of Class: Join Melissa Christian, BSN, RN at Family Care, for an hour-long educational session to explain the history and benefits of recommended childhood vaccinations.
Purpose/Benefits: To educate our patients on the reasons to protect a child with vaccines and dispel common myths that vaccines are dangerous or cause disease.
Where: Family Care. 1413 Carpenter Fletcher Rd, Durham, NC, 27713.
When: Wednesday, September 19, 2019.
Understanding the North Carolina State Health Insurance Plan, with Ryan Mentock, MBHA
Description of Class: Join Ryan Mentock, MBHA at Family Care, for an hour-long educational session to help you understand the components and structure of a the 2018 NC State Health Insurance Plan.
Purpose/Benefits: To educate our patients on health insurance, in general, and help each patient make an informed decision when selecting a health insurance plan for themselves and their family.
Where: Family Care. 1413 Carpenter Fletcher Rd, Durham, NC, 27713.
When: Wednesday, October 10, 2019.
Electronic Patient Survey
Since 2011, Family Care has featured an anonymous web form that patients can use to submit feedback on our practice. This was just an informal tool that we used to help identify problems or concerns that patients may have had with our practice so we could try to improve them. Follow this link if you would like to complete our Patient Satisfaction Form to provide feedback on our office.
Since 2016, Family Care has also used a more formal survey tool through our Electronic Medical Records system. This allows us to randomly survey our patient population, which helps avoid the response bias that is inherent in our informal online Patient Satisfaction Form. This tool through eClinicalWorks will randomly contact up to 500 patients annually to include in a phone or email-based survey at various points throughout the year. There are three ways you may be contacted if you are randomly selected for this survey:
- You may receive an automated call. You will be asked to answer 8-10 questions by indicating your preferences on your phone’s keypad.
- You may receive an email. This email will have a link to an online web form with questions for you to complete.
- You may receive a text message. This text will include a link to complete a form through the browser on your phone.
We only receive the results in aggregate form and cannot identify individual responses to any of the questions that are sent out. The results help us identify areas for improvement and have been an important tool for us in setting policies for our patients, so we appreciate your responses and honesty with these surveys.
Patient Portal
Since 2012, Family Care has utilized an Online Patient Portal to allow patients to access their medical information at any time. The Patient Portal facilitates better communication with our office and allows our patients to become more involved in their medical care by providing convenient and secure access from the comfort and privacy of their own home.
In addition to the online Patient Portal, you can also download the Healow Application for Apple and Android devices. This allows you to access all of the same information included in the online Patient Portal from your mobile device. For more information on the application, including instructions and installation instructions, click here.
Weekday After Hours
To accommodate the busy schedules of our patients, Family Care is open after 5pm three nights per week. Our daily schedule is always listed at the bottom of every page on this website and you can subscribe to our Google Calendar to receive automatic notices if our practice’s schedule changes. While exceptions are always made throughout the year for holidays and provider’s vacation schedules, most weeks will have the following scheduling availability.
- Mondays: 8am – 8pm
- Tuesdays: 8am – 8pm
- Wednesdays: 8am – 5pm
- Thursdays: 8am – 8pm
- Fridays: 8am – 5pm
As we grow, we hope to add additional days and weekends in the next year. We are not currently open on the Weekends, though we are working on a plan to provide coverage on Saturday mornings soon. If this is something that you’d be interested in from our practice, please let us know!
Telehealth Services
The Health Resources and Services Administration defines Telehealth as “the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration.” Where possible, Family Care allows the option for phone consultations that replace the need for in-person office visits. These appointments are billed similarly to regular office visits, but are performed over the phone, instead of in our office. For certain types of visits, such as follow ups on lab results and chronic conditions, an appointment over the phone may be possible in place of an in-office appointment. Our office schedules specific times for each of our providers to handle Telehealth requests, so please contact us if you think your appointment can be performed over the phone.
Direct On-Call to Providers
After hours, Family Care’s providers are available by phone for urgent requests. The phone number for the on-call provider after hours at Family Care is available on our after-hours voicemail when you dial our main phone number at 919-544-6461. This service is for direct access for the patient to a provider and is not a triage phone line, so this number should be used for emergencies only. After-hours phone calls regarding prescription refill requests, appointment requests, and non-urgent matters should leave a voicemail on our main phone number and a representative from our office will be in touch with you the day we return.
Direct Messaging to Providers
After hours, Family Care’s providers are also available through your patient portal account. By logging in to our portal, a patient at Family Care can contact their provider through email directly after hours and on weekends. This is not to be used for emergencies and patients should not expect an immediate response. Typically, our providers will check for direct messages once or twice per weekend and reply to the most urgent requests immediately. For matters deemed non-urgent, you should expect a reply within 24 hours after our office re-opens.