House calls are a healthy idea

STUART — House calls aren’t a relic of the horse-and-buggy era.

For some Treasure Coast seniors, house calls are the primary way they get health care.

Since 2001, Housecalls Express has provided basic primary care to mostly older residents across the Treasure Coast. A doctor oversees all the patient treatment, but physician assistants handle the appointments — between 550 and 625 each month.

Ralph Horton, 86, has been a patient since Housecalls Express opened, along with his wife, Priscilla. Horton is bedridden, so if it weren’t for regular house calls to their Hobe Sound home, the couple would not have regular care.

“It’s just been wonderful. They’ve been great,” Priscilla Horton said. “I don’t know how we could have gotten along without their help.”

Housecalls Express founder Jeff Hulley, a physician assistant, came up with the idea while working in the Martin Memorial South emergency department.

“We saw so many people coming in for nonemergent problems,” Hulley said. “And so many older people coming in ambulances with serious problems that could have been small ones, had they received treatment.”

Maybe these patients had a full-body infection that started out as an untreated urinary tract infection, or pneumonia that began as a cold. Either way, early care would have prevented an expensive trip to the emergency room, Hulley said.

He expected Housecalls Express to cater to all ages, including parents needing late-night care for their children. But elderly patients have the greatest need for the service, Hulley said.

The average house-call patient is between 70 and 90 years old and cannot leave home.

Through referrals from home-health organizations or other agencies, Housecalls Express sees about five new patients a week. Two full-time and seven part-time physician assistants handle the house calls, which typically last between 15 minutes and an hour.

The experience is rewarding for patient and practitioner, said physician assistant Tim Davis, who joined Housecalls Express about five months ago. Davis spends his days driving from Jupiter to Vero Beach, visiting patients with an old-fashioned doctor’s bag of equipment, and has no interest in returning to regular practice.

“I had no idea that doctors or physician assistants were still making house calls, except for if you signed up for a VIP doctor,” Davis said. “The idea that insurance would absolutely cover house calls, that it was not above and beyond, was absolutely amazing.”