ORANGE — The Center for Human Development (CHD) has started offering primary care to patients.
The Springfield-based nonprofit human services organization opened in the former TD Bank at 30 East Main St. in March, offering individual and group counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychiatry services, recovery coaching and case management, as well as medication-supported recovery for clients facing addiction.
“Everybody’s excited about it,” Dr. Chad McDonald said about the addition of primary care. “The staff have been waiting years to do this up there.”
McDonald explained he will commute from his Connecticut home to provide primary care to CHD’s patients in Orange from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays. Patients will be able to access primary care via telehealth Monday through Thursday during that same time frame until patient volume increases to justify having another on-site physician.
This new program, also being rolled out at CHD’s Easthampton and West Springfield locations, will integrate medical care, nursing case management and behavioral health services under one umbrella, from preventive visits and routine checkups to managing chronic conditions.
CHD primary care services will include treatment of minor illnesses like coughs, a cold, the flu, ear and eye pain, a sore throat and rashes, as well as minor injuries like burns, sprains, bumps and bruises. It will also include chronic disease management for ailments like asthma, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and high blood pressure, along with diagnostic services, medication refills, referrals to specialists and access to behavioral health care.
McDonald is certified in family medicine and addiction medicine, which is expected to fill a need in the North Quabbin area.
“I feel for the people in the region because, from what they tell me, there’s no primary services,” he noted.
CHD believes that housing primary care and behavioral health services under one roof supports a team-based approach to care delivery and allows for treating the whole person, examining both physical and mental health needs. Medical and behavioral health providers are able to collaborate easily in the same location.
“A standard primary care office doesn’t have all the tools that CHD has in its toolbox,” McDonald explained. “This is important because our mental health and physical health are very intimately connected. If you’re ignoring one, then the other is likely going to struggle, too, and several studies have shown that patients with psychiatric illness live 10 to 20 years less than patients who don’t struggle with those ailments.”
Dr. Ryan Alvares, CHD’s chief of psychiatry, said mental illness and addiction are co-occurring conditions and often result in a patient making physical health less of a priority.
“I feel great about telling them they don’t have to wait a year to see someone, and we’re all going to be able to work together,” he said in a statement. “It’s a huge benefit.”
Ben Craft, CHD’s vice president of community engagement, said in a statement that access to primary care in Massachusetts has long been a challenge for a lot of people and families, in large part because the system in place for training and incentivizing providers has not given appropriate recognition to the importance of primary care.
“In the case of CHD, we were involved in many other facets of the lives of the people we support — behavioral health, housing and shelter, access to opportunity — and yet regular access to primary care was a recurring theme,” he said. “We’re trying to fill that deficit of services, across demographic boundaries.
“You don’t need to be an existing CHD client to get primary care services,” Craft added. “It just makes sense to offer as many services as possible in a single visit. It’s more convenient for individuals and families. Instead of missing work on multiple days, instead of needing childcare or transportation support on multiple days, let’s align the services around the patient and their needs. That also provides maximum coordination and connectivity of services, and less of the telephone game coordinating different sets of needs.”
The CHD clinic in Orange can be reached at 978-544-2148.
