A study published recently in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at 650,651 Medicare patients hospitalized in 2013. It showed that when patients were cared for by their own outpatient physician, they had a slightly better outcome than when the patients were attended to by full-time hospital-based specialists who had not previously known them.

As an internal medicine physician who maintains hospital privileges, as well as caring for patients in an office setting, this study supports the type of medicine I have been trying to practice for the last 38 years. However, I am not naïve enough to believe it entirely.

In recent months, similar studies have touted the benefit of female physicians over their male counterparts, younger physicians over older physicians and even foreign-trained physicians over those trained in the USA. Based on these studies, one might conclude you should be treated by a young female outpatient physician who trained in a foreign country. While the JAMA study shows the success of the outpatient primary care physician, those in hospitalist medicine could similarly produce their own studies showing the benefit of using a hospital-based physician or hospitalist.

I do believe having a familiar physician, you know and trust, adds a major level of comfort when you are ill. Having that physician consult within his or her referral network of physicians who know how that doctor expects the communication between doctors, and care to occur, is an additional benefit.

The fact that your personal physician knows what you look like in health gives them a distinct advantage in recognizing when you are ill. They know you, and all about you and that helps. It especially helps patients with complex medical issues who require more time and thought. Being able to review the old records and previous specialty consultations which you were a part of seems to impart an advantage that someone just joining the care team does not yet possess.

This study does not say that outpatient primary care doctors are better than hospitalists. It only points out that in a senior citizen population in 2013, patients cared for by their own primary care doctor had a better 30-day survival after a hospital stay.

Steven Reznick is an internal medicine physician and can be reached at Boca Raton Concierge Doctor.

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