Dr. Angie Devitt: Federal funds an opportunity to expand rural health care options

By Dr. Angie Devitt

As president of the Idaho Academy of Family Physicians and a practicing family physician for nearly three decades, I know firsthand that not everyone understands what we do. A longtime patient recently asked me whom she should see for routine cervical cancer screening – a gynecologist, she assumed after a quick internet search. In truth, this is routine care that family physicians provide every day. This story underscores a larger truth: Idaho’s health depends on accessible, comprehensive family medicine.

Family physicians are the only specialty trained to care for people across the lifespan – newborns through seniors – providing preventive services, routine gynecologic care, chronic disease management, urgent hospital care and continuity through life’s major transitions. Our training includes three years of residency with integrated inpatient and outpatient care across pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, psychiatry, surgery and community medicine. More than 12,000 clinical hours prepare family physicians to identify and treat conditions early, manage complex chronic disease, and coordinate specialty and hospital care when needed.

This broad scope matters for improved outcomes. Access to a regular primary care physician is linked to lower infant mortality, higher birth weights, higher immunization rates, lower overall health care costs, and longer, healthier lives. In rural Idaho, where distances are long and specialist access limited, family physicians are often the first – and sometimes only – source of care. We perform procedures, deliver hospital and emergency care, provide obstetrics in many communities, and manage chronic illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, and COPD that drive severity of illness, and health care costs.

The coming influx of federal dollars to health care in rural Idaho through the Rural Health Transformation Program is a critical opportunity – and a responsibility. These investments must prioritize medical education and workforce development so we can train and retain more family physicians where they are needed most. Funding should expand residency positions, support rural training tracks, and invest in scholarships and loan repayment tied to rural practice.

We must also direct funds to strengthen Idaho’s Critical Access Hospitals and the primary care practices that coordinate with them. These hospitals are lifelines for rural communities; keeping them viable requires targeted support for staffing, infrastructure, and integrated care models. That leads to another imperative: investment in Patient Centered Medical Homes and continuity of care. PCMHs coordinate care, use data and technology effectively, and keep patients connected to a trusted clinician – the proven path to better chronic disease control, fewer hospitalizations, and lower costs.

Family physicians are uniquely positioned to reduce the burden of chronic disease through longitudinal relationships, preventive care, early detection, and care coordination. When patients see the same clinician over time in a team-based PCMH, we catch uncontrolled hypertension before stroke, optimize diabetes care to prevent kidney failure, prioritize vaccinations to prevent infectious disease, and support smoking cessation and weight management that cut cancer and heart disease risk.

Idaho’s future health depends on sensible investment: build the workforce, strengthen Critical Access Hospitals, and fund primary care models that keep patients anchored in communities. Federal dollars give us a chance to do that work right. Let’s use them to strengthen family medicine – and through us, the health of every Idahoan.

Dr. Angie Devitt, president of the Idaho Academy of Family Physicians, was raised in Boise. She went to Loma Linda University for medical school and happily returned to Boise for her family medicine residency. She has practiced in the Treasure Valley for over 25 years. She included obstetrics and inpatient medicine for 20 of those years and now is enjoying her outpatient practice across all ages and stages of life.