What is Relationship-Based Primary Care?

Key Takeaways

Relationship-based care is a healthcare model that focuses on delivering higher-quality care through strong relationships between patients and their doctors.
Key fundamentals of relationship-based care are a culture centered around healing, family, teamwork, and communication, all supported by a genuine connection between patients and their providers.
The benefits of relationship-based primary care include improved patient satisfaction, increased trust in providers, and overall better health outcomes.
Redirect Health maintains relationship-based primary care as a key principle in providing members with access to healthcare services.

The relationships between patients and their doctors are unique, requiring a degree of trust, vulnerability, and empathy. Focusing on these relationships to foster improved communication can have extreme benefits in the healthcare journey.

Relationship-based care (RBC) is a healthcare model that prioritizes creating a strong relationship between patients and their healthcare providers to improve the quality of care they receive. The philosophy of this healthcare model emphasizes that strong patient-provider relationships are essential in meeting fulfilling patient needs and ensuring they have the support they need.

The value of relationship-based care provides several advantages for patients and healthcare providers alike. A relationship-based care approach leads to a wide range of potential benefits, from enhanced patient satisfaction to overall better health outcomes.

The Essence of Relationship-Based Care

The foundation of relationship-based care is built off a culture shift that promotes improved patient outcomes through enhanced communication and transparency between patients and providers. This healthcare model is based on establishing a true connection to promote an environment of compassion, trust, and support.

Patients should feel comfortable reaching out to and interacting with their healthcare provider, while providers should have a genuine concern for their patient’s health and well-being. This model is founded on a few key principles.

The pillars of relationship-based care are:

A healing-focused culture
Patients and their families
Teamwork
Leadership
Communication
Quality care delivery
System design

In relationship-based care, there are several relationships that matter. Of course, these include the relationship between providers, patients, and their families, but also include the relationships between colleagues and a provider’s relationship with themselves.

In cohesion, these strong relationships shape the processes and procedures involved in care provision, all facilitating increased comfort and transparency and better results for patients.

Why Relationship-Based Care is Invaluable

You can’t put a price on the value of patient health, and relationship-based care fosters improved health outcomes for patients through several mechanisms. Stronger relationships between patients and their healthcare providers allow for more patient comfort and a greater likelihood that their needs will be met.

Much of the current healthcare landscape is focused on pushing patients out as quickly as possible to increase efficiency and profit. Of course, this model leads to inadequate patient care, reduced patient-provider connections, and a greater chance of patient concerns going unresolved.

On the other hand, RBC puts a priority on getting to know each patient, understanding their unique needs, and recognizing their concerns. When relationships are a factor, patients are more likely to seek care in the first place, and doctors are better able to provide treatment. Maintaining relationship-based care offers many advantages for patients and providers alike.

Some of the benefits of RBC include:

Increased trust – When patients trust their provider, they’re more likely to share important information and follow their doctor’s advice, ensuring better health outcomes.
Better patient experience and satisfaction – With more proactive and more conscious providers, patients are more confident in the care they’ll receive and more satisfied with the outcome.
More holistic care – Instead of patients visiting the doctor to address a concern and get out as quickly as possible, relationship-based care allows patients to communicate more freely so providers can fulfill their needs, ensuring holistic health through mental and physical care.
Better health outcomes – Because patients with strong relationships are more likely to seek preventive and urgent care, they’re more likely to experience better outcomes and have lower instances of unplanned admissions to the hospital.

Advantages for Healthcare Providers

Yes, patients have plenty to gain from the RBC model, but providers stand to benefit greatly on the other side of the coin. Some key benefits of this model for healthcare providers include:

Greater success – Because providers better understand their patients, they’re better able to provide support and healthcare advice tailored to their unique needs, resulting in better outcomes.
Improved patient satisfaction – Improved patient satisfaction is a benefit for providers, too, as satisfied patients are likely to recommend a practice, bringing more success through positive reviews and word-of-mouth.
More efficiency – Better patient outcomes and more proactive care means fewer patient visits, allowing providers to serve more patients more effectively.
Reduced burnout – Meaningful relationships with patients and a model focused on meeting patient needs rather than quotas often bring more fulfillment and reduce the likelihood of providers burning out.

Redirect Health’s Approach to Relationship-Based Care

At Redirect Health, relationship-based care is a pillar of our healthcare model. Our Care Team supports Redirect Health members in all areas of their care, with the goal of understanding each member’s unique needs to direct them to the exact care necessary for their concerns. From coordinating each step of our members’ care to following up with them after the fact to ensure each need was addressed, our members are our priority.

Today, under Redirect Health’s EverydayCARE™ plan, for as little as $145 per month, members have no copays, 24-hour telemedicine access, unlimited primary and injury care, free chiropractic and annual preventive exams, labs, and immunizations, as well as access to a 24-7 health concierge system, organized through our Care Team.

Our Care Team personnel guide members to the best and most affordable care in all situations, from the onset of symptoms to office visits to purchasing reasonably priced prescriptions and beyond. Care Logistics team members can even direct you to the best prices (far below insurance rates) for childbirth, cancer treatment, and more.

“What we offer here is really so much more than primary care,” Berg added. Since 2014, Redirect Health has grown to 7,000 members and business owners in 43 states. Its mission is simply “Easy and Truly Affordable Healthcare for Everyone.”

Experience True Relationship-Based Care with Redirect Health

Relationship-based care is an unparalleled approach to healthcare, prioritizing the patient and their needs rather than profit. A relationship-based healthcare model results in better outcomes for patients and key advantages for healthcare providers.

When enrolling in EverydayCARE, Redirect Health’s Care Logistics team collects important relevant medical data that allows for efficient planning, saving members’ time and money. Proactive management for chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, for example, just makes sense.

Instead of reacting to problems, Care Logistics team members can arrange for medications like insulin or blood pressure prescriptions to be purchased at the best prices and to arrive at your home or be ready for pick-up on the way home from work well ahead of when they are needed.

“I’d much rather we call to ask you about your diabetes, about your little girl’s asthma and husband’s cancer than you having to call us,” Berg said. “This is about creating relationships. We want it to be simple and transparent, and we want to create trust. This is really relationship-based direct care.”

Explore our patient-first healthcare plans for yourself, or contact us today to learn more about what our plans have to offer and how we integrate relationship-based care as a crucial component of our model.