Provider

In the health care context, a provider is a health care professional who acts at the interface between a patient (customer) and the health care delivery system. Providers can have many different faces, from the physician who serves to direct the overall care of a patient to nurses who make sure that specific elements of care are delivered, to professionals, such as physical therapists, who treat a specific portion of a patient's clinical condition. Thus health care provider is a generic term for any health care professional in the system who interacts with patients to improve their health.

Health care providers are usually divided into primary care providers (PCPs) and specialty care providers (SCPs). Primary care services involve a number of health maintenance and preventive activities:

• Routine health maintenance checkups
• Immunizations
• Treatment of common illnesses, such as respiratory and digestive disorders
• Caring for psychosocial needs
• Counseling on good health practices
• Nutritional counseling

As with any health care professional, PCPs must be especially attuned to the psychosocial situation of each individual to better customize medical care. Physician specialties devoted to primary care include pediatrics, internal medicine, and family practice. Some experts also include obstetrics and gynecology as a primary care specialty, because these practitioners frequently assume responsibility for the primary care of women. Other health professionals may also provide primary care services, including advanced practice nurses, home health nurses, school nurses, and parish nurses (affiliated with religious institutions). The degree to which these professionals may engage in providing independent services varies according to licensing requirements and community practices.

Specialty care providers include practitioners who focus on one aspect of patient care. SCPs are generally divided into medical specialists and surgical specialists. Most medical SCPs in the U.S. health care system tend to focus on one organ system, such as neurology, which concentrates on diseases of the brain and nervous system, or pulmonology, which focuses on disorders of the lungs. Surgical SCPs specialize in types of procedures. For example, cardiothoracic surgeons perform surgical procedures on the chest, heart, and lungs; or neurosurgeons perform operations on the brain and spinal cord. Although most surgical specialty providers are physicians, some do not have traditional medical training, such as podiatrists, who operate on feet.

Nontraditional providers include those who practice complementary and alternative medicine. These approaches to health care vary considerably in efficacy and include such modalities as acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractic, biofeedback, energy healing, herbal medicine, massage therapy, homeopathy, reflexology, and a host of others.