GP Surgeries vs. Medical Clinics

The Basic GP’s Surgery Versus A Well-Equipped Medical Clinic

With due deference to the hard work and broad experience typical of general practitioners, few of these stalwart healthcare professionals are in a position to offer the extensive range of services available from a modern medical clinic. While, all over the world, there has been a tendency for GPs to extend their facilities by joining forces with colleagues to form group practices, most of these are still limited to the provision of primary care. For those patients who might require the services of a pathology lab, a radiographer, or a physiotherapist, for example, a referral will invariably be necessary.

Apart from the lack of these ancillary healthcare facilities, both lone GPs and group practices operate like offices, which means that their patient services are not generally available outside normal work hours or on public holidays. By contrast, patients at an Intercare medical clinic will be faced with no such limitations. While their extended consulting hours, which include both weekends and public holidays, are obviously a huge plus for their patients, this is just one of a number of important benefits that can be enjoyed by anyone who chooses to attend one of Intercare’s assorted private healthcare facilities.

Other measures that serve to distinguish Intercare facilities and which are aimed at optimising the overall patient experience include ensuring that its day hospitals, dental centres, and medical clinics are conveniently located and easily accessible. Also, in order to limit the need for patient referrals that can often result in their treatments being delayed – and unnecessarily prolonged discomfort – Intercare’s policy is to adopt a multidisciplinary approach when planning its primary-care centres.

What this means is that, should a patient require something a little more complex than a routine blood-glucose test or a simple urinalysis, the full services of a well-equipped pathology department are available on the same premises and, when considered urgent, many tests can be carried out while the patient and their doctor wait. Other specialist services available on site at an Intercare medical clinic include those of a dietician, a physiotherapist, an audiologist, an optometrist, and a psychologist.

In addition to routine consultations, each of these centres offers a number of screening services for the detection of conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, HIV,  and breast, cervical, and prostatic cancer, The clinics also promote and administer vaccination programmes, as well as offering the various prophylactic measures often required by travellers. Where a condition may not be life-threatening but in need of immediate attention, patients are free to walk into an Intercare medical clinic with no appointment. They can also use our convenient online booking facility.