Dr. Smith DirectCare

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Celebrating Jordan’s 38th birthday. What an uplifting influence he’s had on so many through the years. Happy Birthday Jordan.

Dr. Smith DirectCare updated their business hours.

Dr. Smith DirectCare now takes appointments on their Page.

As we approach Christmas next week, and as the end of the year draws near, it is a time to post reflections and remembrances. It has been an odd and sometimes not-so-great year, but each day remains welcome (since I have fewer and fewer of them as time marches on). Thankfully, in 2021, made it through a hip replacement, followed by an infection, requiring a revision and finally resolution and a return to mobility. Further, I weathered a rare form of Leukemia (Hairy Cell), which responded well to treatment and, I believe, is in a state of remission. I’ll find out more when I return to MD Anderson in January for follow up.

We are starting to experience the unwelcome arrival of yet another Coronovirus variant, the Omicrom version. This one seems to spread faster, but may lead to somewhat milder clinical disease—I hope that continues to be the case. Clearly, getting vaccinated, and receiving a booster after 6 months, is important in stemming the tide of this wave of tragic illness. It is beyond me why those of you out there who haven’t done so continue to resist this life saving immunization. We have tamed smallpox, polio, and many other dreaded illnesses through vaccines just like this one and, yet, there seems to be singular resistance Covid vaccine that wasn’t present for these others. Why is that? My only explanation seems to be some weird political connection or orientation that has led to a barrage of misinformation and fear and a sense that the “federal government is foisting this upon us”. At any rate, I hope you’ll all change your minds and get vaccinated before its too late. One only has to look at colleagues and weary burned out staff at institutions along with heartbroken family members of intubated or dying patients to realize how foolish it is to continue to refuse to get vaccinated. If you haven’t seen the move “The First Wave”, I highly recommend that you watch it! You may never be the same afterwards, at least in respect to how you view the effects of the Pandemic.

Enough rambling, though…

Thanks to my patients at Dr. Smith Direct Care for your continued confidence in me as your physician. I am always honored and humbled by that.

Here’s hoping that 2022 brings an end to the Pandemic and that it is a (more) joyful year that this one was.

Merry Christmas to you from Dr. Smith Direct Care.

If you are 65 and older, have a health condition that. Increases your risk, or are a health care worker, and if you received the Pfizer vaccine for Covid, you are eligible for a booster.

I urge you to get one.

And, while you’re at it, get your flu shot!

Dr. Smith is an established leader in the field of Family Medicine, having spent a career as Faculty and Associate Dean at UAMS. He continues to teach in the outpatient clinic every Wednesday afternoon.

His practice specializes in personal attention to your health care needs and availability (in office, through texting, phone calls, or e mailing) to answer your every health question or attend to your health needs. In addition, he will coordinate your care, making referrals whenever needed and incorporate those suggestions into his care for you.

If you would like this type of primary care, make an appointment to come and see him. If you have other questions, please give us a call!

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19            We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

We remain vigilant at our office during this dark time. Call before you come in, and don’t come at all if you have symptoms that may be Covid. We can continue to provide most care via phone, text or e mail and careful in office visits, if needed.

And, I get a lot of questions about what to take for effective prophylaxis: NOT ivermectin, NOT hydroxychloroquine. VACCINE! That is the only effective strategy.

And, what to do if you get symptoms and test + for Covid…get a monoclonal antibody infusion, if possible, as that has been proven to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, intubation, and possibly, death from this awful bug!

We are facing a disturbing surge in Covid 19 cases, accounting for increased hospitalizations, patients being placed on a ventilator, and a number of deaths. Sadly, one of the patients in this practice died recently from Covid.

Virtually all of these patients have, for whatever reason, refused to take advantage of the simple protection of an available vaccine. Those of you who have been vaccinated are extremely unlikely to get sick from Covid.

Please, if you have not yet gotten the vaccine, don’t take unnecessary chances with your life and get vaccinated—today!

Please review my blog post today about prevention:

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/what-about-prevention/

What About Prevention? - Dr. Smith Direct Care A patient recently contacted me to ask what types of preventive measures she should be taking at this stage of her life. I was a little surprised at this since this individual was a highly educated person. But it dawned on me that a lot of patients are not following these issues closely or discussin...

Take a look at today’s blog post:

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/line-up-get-on-a-waiting-list-and-get-your-covid-vaccine/

Line up, Get on a Waiting List, and get Your Covid Vaccine! - Dr. Smith Direct Care To all Dr Smith Direct Care Patients, and to anyone else reading this message: We now have a vaccine against this dreaded disease! I was lucky enough to receive two doses recently, and didn’t have significant adverse effects. Now, I should be relatively safe from this terrible pestilence, and can ...

A patient recently inquired about what action to take to get the Covid vaccine as soon as their “turn” came up. I recommend that you go to one of these two pharmacy web sites Don’s Pharmacy (donsrx.com) or Kavanaugh Pharmacy (kavanaughrx.com) and get on the waiting list. They will contact you when your turn comes.

In the meantime, stay safe!

Rx.com : Prescription Prices, Coupons & Pharmacy Information

Please note a message below concerning appointment availability for the next couple of weeks.

Stay well!

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/message-to-dr-smith-patients-about-upcoming-surgery/

Message to Dr. Smith Patients about upcoming surgery - Dr. Smith Direct Care To my patients: One week from today, on October 15th, I will undergo a left total hip arthroplasty at UAMS. I will, therefore, have to close the office on that day, as well as the following week, October 13th and 15th. At this point, barring unforeseen circumstances, I plan to reopen on 10/27. I exp...

I copied this link from a colleague who also has a DPC practice. I thought you’d enjoy reading it:

https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/news/20200206/more-patients-turning-to-direct-primary-care?fbclid=IwAR20vPd4H9VU375sOzu689atjM1CU1GTIC4oNNHGeQWOK2k5jyVgKG4qB7U

More Patients Turning to 'Direct Primary Care' DPC Frontier, which tracks the number of direct primary care practices nationally, estimates there are 1,219 practices in 48 states and Washington, D.C. They range in size from solo practitioners to corporate, multisite direct primary care organizations with thousands of doctors.

I recently had a patient who wanted to be seen earlier than I could routinely schedule him, so I made special arrangements to see him outside of regular hours. After a comprehensive history and physical exam, he said: “No one has ever gone through this process with this much time and detail”. He had a complicated history and we ended up spending two hours going over things. He was a new patient and this was his first visit.

I relate this encounter, not to boast, but to illustrate that that is how Direct Primary Care can provide you the time and thoroughness that you need to return to health and maintain it.

If you are in need of personalized care that will meet your needs, come check us out at

DrSmithDirectCare.com

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

Don’t allow worry about Covid 10 to upend your commitment to a healthy lifestyle. Continue to do these things:
1. Get 7 or more hours of restful sleep at night.
2. Eat a well balanced diet, don’t over eat, don’t snack excessively.
3. Drink plenty of water, stay hydrated.
4. Get at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise on at least 5 days a week.
5. Don’t drink excessive amount of alcohol
6. Don’t smoke.
7. Stay safe by hand washing and wearing a mask; and practice appropriate physical distancing.
8. Don’t delay getting the vaccine when it’s available.
9. Stay engaged, involved, read daily, seek opportunities to have meaningful conversation.
10. Refuse to allow anxiety, cynicism or fatalism to set in. We’ll get through this and things will be better soon.

And, if you need a P*P who you can reach anytime for anything, give us a call.

Drsmithdirectcare.com

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

Today’s blog post commentary on the value of telehealth during the Coronavirus pandemic:

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/patients-are-recognizing-the-value-of-telehealth-visits/

Patients are Recognizing the Value of Telehealth Visits - Dr. Smith Direct Care For many years, patients and physicians alike have resisted the notion of online contact as an alternative to the office visit. However, over the past year, many offices have transitioned to as much as 80% of their visits being done via telehealth. This includes video visits, text messaging, use of....

Hassle free medical care. As a patient, you can contact me anytime by text message, cell phone, e mail or medical record-based messaging. Easy appointments in the office whenever needed.

Contact us or come ‘check us out’. You can make an appointment online through our website.

DrSmithDirectCare.com.

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

Read today’s blog post about making social distancing decisions during the Coronavirus Pandemic:

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/social-distancing-deciding-how-much-risk-to-take/

Social Distancing: Deciding how Much Risk to Take. - Dr. Smith Direct Care Patients are often in a quandary about issues related to social distancing. This has been especially true for those who are older or who have chronic conditions. One of my wife’s friends in her exercise group has opted out of group participation for the foreseeable future to minimize risk of virus...

After several months of limited office availability, we are resuming regular scheduling, beginning Thursday, July 2nd, and will have appointment availability on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. til 1 p.m.

We still have openings for patients in our practice if you need a primary care physician. Please call or come see us.

DrSmithDirectCare.com

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

Thanks to all for your understanding and patience during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Dr. Smith Direct Care will resume regularly scheduled office visits July 1st. We will change the office days to Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 til 1.

Remember that we will always schedule visits by request at other times, and are always available for phone, video, text or e mail consultation.

Thanks for being part of Dr. Smith Direct Care.

And, if you are in need of an accessible, affordable, accomplished P*P give us a call anytime!

DrSmithDirectCare.com

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

Read my blog post from today on “change”

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/604-2/

Reflections on Change - Dr. Smith Direct Care Change is inevitable. Most of us are more comfortable when things roll along in familiarity. But, for me, the last 12 months have been anything but familiar. Over this time, I have: -Retired from a 30 year career as a medical faculty member at UAMS -Started a direct primary care practice -Become med...

This is a crazy time and many patients are not getting needed care for chronic health conditions because of the pandemic.

At Dr. Smith Direct Care, we provide easy access to ongoing care, meds, and office visits as needed. We haven’t resumed routine visit scheduling yet, but are committed to continued excellent care for all of our patients.

If you have friends who may need a primary care physician, please share this page!

Thanks, and stay well.

DrSmithDirectCare.com

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

If you had questions about Direct Primary Care, you should be able to find the answers in this comprehensive report about DPC by Milliman Actuarial firm:
https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/files/resources/research-report/2020/direct-primary-care-eval-model.pdf

www.soa.org

Today’s blog post discusses the effects of the pandemic on chronic health conditions, and keeping up your guard to prevent health problems down the road.

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/dont-let-your-guard-down/

Don’t Let your Guard Down! - Dr. Smith Direct Care In today’s WSJ an article presented evidence that patients were delaying treatment of chronic conditions, and there would likely be a surge in medical problems as a result. It’s easy to understand why we would all be tempted to postpone scheduled blood tests, provider visits to review chronic co...

I was asked yesterday if our office is still closed. The answer is “yes”, we remain closed for routine, scheduled office visits, but if you have an issue of urgent or semi-urgent concern, I’m happy to meet you at the office and see you.

We will continue to monitor the numbers of Coronavirus infections and other metrics, and try to determine a safe date to open back up. Thanks to all for your understanding and support of our efforts to keep everyone safe during the pandemic.

And remember, we are available by phone, text, e mail, messaging and video visits.

DrSmithDirectCare.com

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

Greetings to my wonderful patients. I miss being able to see you in the office and look forward to the day when we’re able to visit there once again. I’m cheered and amazed that most of my patients start a text or phone call with “How are you doing, Doc?”. So, their first concern is often for their provider more than the primacy of their own health question! Just amazing.

Anyway, during this awful, depressing Coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Smith Direct Care is there to help you, so give me a shout if you need anything.

And, if you need a primary care physician, go ahead and sign up for our practice at DrSmithDirectCare.com. We’ll take good care of you!

Homepage - Dr. Smith Direct Care Care At Your Convenience COVID-19 We welcome new patients during the pandemic and will take care of any medical needs we possibly can using telehealth tools, such as phone or video visits, eliminating the need to come in for an office visit. House Calls Patient care for the hom...

https://drsmithdirectcare.com/reflections-on-the-coronavirus-pandemic/https://drsmithdirectcare.com/reflections-on-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

Reflections on the Coronavirus Pandemic - Dr. Smith Direct Care How can I describe the times we are experiencing? Where do I start, and what is worth saying? Who dreamed that our world would have turned upside down so suddenly and violently? We are getting “cabin fever” from sheltering in place. We are ready to have this nightmare behind us and resume our us...

Very informative and easy to understand article about the common dilemma of elevated blood pressure as we age:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-hypertension-is-more-deadly-than-it-has-to-be-11587234941?emailToken=583434af1f5656569092187f29241da4YdynKLs1jGNpBLnruSdVOYDn4Qm2UhhTXeiWS+j3EweZWK2zfIOQjGZ/Qk+7PE4QS6zNLlK5rQwO5ULPgnPw1JLiAdlqkoP99zLo+kS59gg%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share

Why Hypertension Is More Deadly Than It Has to Be With the right diagnosis and treatment, high blood pressure can usually be easily managed. Covid-19 has made this more crucial than ever.