How Primary Care for Women is Different at Tia

At Tia, we offer a primary care model that’s hybrid (both in-clinic and virtual) and comprehensive. While women’s healthcare often centers on gynecology, primary care is essential across all life stages. Historically, healthcare models have lacked accessible, comprehensive care for women—until now.

What Is Primary Care?

At its core, primary care is the first point of contact in the healthcare system. It’s where individuals go for general health maintenance, preventive services, and treatment of common illnesses and conditions. Primary care is holistic and patient-centered, often focusing on long-term relationships between patients and their healthcare providers.

Primary care services typically include:

• Preventative care: Annual check-ups, immunizations, screenings for conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer, and counseling on lifestyle changes like nutrition and exercise.
• Treatment for common conditions: This can range from managing chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes or depression to providing care for infections, colds, or injuries.
• Health guidance and education: Primary care providers offer advice on managing health concerns, mental wellness, sexual health, and aging.
• Referrals: When more specialized care is needed, primary care providers help coordinate the care you need outside of their walls to specialists who have deeper expertise in areas like cardiology, endocrinology, or fertility.

Why Is Primary Care Important for Women?

Despite the continued lack of adequate research focused on women’s health, we know women aren’t just small men. And their healthcare needs are often ignored or misunderstood. Comprehensive primary care by clinicians who understand the unique healthcare needs women face at each stage of their lives, and who also are able to provide truly comprehensive care, is incredibly important.

Here’s why primary care is so important for women:

1. Comprehensive, Continuity of Care: Primary care offers ongoing, coordinated care over the course of a woman’s life. This continuity of care means your provider can track your health history, understand your unique health needs, and support you in making decisions that align with your overall wellness goals. Having a consistent primary care home, ensures that someone knows you as a whole person, not just a set of symptoms.
2. Preventive Health: Preventative care is essential to keeping women healthy long-term. From routine screenings for breast and cervical cancer to heart disease risk assessments and mental health evaluations, primary care providers help women monitor their health and take proactive steps to prevent chronic diseases.
3. Managing Women's Health Conditions: Many health issues are specific to women, and these can affect different stages of life. Primary care providers play a key role in helping women manage conditions like PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), endometriosis, and menstrual health. They also offer guidance on fertility, family planning, contraception, menopause, and hormone therapy.
4. Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being: Women’s mental health is just as important as physical health, yet many women face barriers to receiving mental health support. Primary care providers can help diagnose and treat mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and postpartum mood changes, and have an understanding of when mental health support needs to extend beyond the scope of primary care
5. Access to Resources and Education: Women often juggle many roles and responsibilities in their personal and professional lives, which can take a toll on physical and mental health. Primary care providers serve as a resource, not just for medical issues but also for lifestyle guidance, stress management, and support to help women live a healthier, more balanced life.

Tia’s Hybrid Primary Care Model: Virtual and In-Person Care Combined

One of the unique aspects of Tia’s approach to primary care is our hybrid care model. We understand that women’s lives are busy, and coming to the clinic should never be a barrier to care. We also know comprehensive care is hard to do fully on the internet. That’s why we offer both virtual and in-person care, ensuring that women have access to healthcare when and how they need it.

Virtual Care: Whether you need a quick check-up, birth control prescription, or mental health support, our virtual care platform offers the convenience of accessing care from the comfort of your home. Virtual care also allows us to offer regular follow-ups and keep track of your health over time, without the need for in-person visits.

In-Person Care: Tia’s physical clinics are designed with women in mind, offering a comfortable, welcoming environment where you can receive personalized, hands-on care from our expert clinicians for health needs that you can’t address virtually.

A Holistic Primary Care Home

We believe women deserve care that is accessible, safe, and comprehensive, which is why Tia goes beyond traditional primary care by offering a holistic approach that takes into account your entire health journey. We address your physical, mental, and emotional well-being with an emphasis on preventative care. By combining virtual care, in-person services, and ongoing support, Tia provides a healthcare experience that is seamless, integrated, and deeply personalized. Which is what women need now, more than ever.