Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks

Primary Care

Primary Care offers an extensive range of treatment modalities with emphasis on health care prevention. Primary Care allows you to identify one physician and team responsible for serving all of your healthcare needs. Our goal is to help you remain healthy and have a better quality of life through this coordinated effort.

Primary Care/Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT)

You will be assigned a Primary Care/Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT). This team includes: You, Primary Care Provider, Registered Nurse, Licensed Practical Nurse, and a Clerk.  It may also include any of the following, based on your needs: Social Worker, Pharmacist, Mental Health Provider, Dietician, Specialists, etc.

Appointments and Waiting Time

Our goal is to see you at your scheduled appointment time. That may not always be possible, but we try not to keep you waiting for more than 30 minutes. When coming for your appointment, please:

• Be on time, and check in at your appointment site 30 minutes prior to your actual appointment time.
• Bring with you all medications and over-the-counter drugs that you are currently using.
• Call 1-479-443-4301 or 1-800-691-8387 if you have to cancel or if you will be late for your appointment.
• Come earlier if you already know you need to have laboratory work or other medical tests done.
• Follow any fasting or special instructions given to you prior to your laboratory test or special procedure.

Things to Bring With You:

• Any medical records, reports, labs, test results, etc. from another facility or from a non-VA provider.
• All bottles of medicines you take, including over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, food supplements and/or herbal remedies.
• Advance Directive if not on file or if it has been changed.
• A list of questions you may have for your provider.
• A list of medical problems to share with your provider.
• Your blood pressure or blood sugar readings, if you have them. Also bring the blood sugar and/or blood pressure machine you are using.
• Any health insurance information you have.

Services include:

• preventive care (includes wellness, immunizations, lab screening)
• diagnosis treatment
• medication management
• referral to specialists
• pharmacy services
• nutrition services
• mental health

Women's Clinic

The Women’s Clinic primary care team provides medical and gynecological care for women including general medicine, pap tests,  contraception, sexually-transmitted disease testing, and menopause management. Women’s Clinic primary care is available at the VA Medical Center in Fayetteville.

Accessing Services

• Veterans may request enrollment in Primary Care at the time of registration or may be referred to Primary Care through other mechanisms such as: following Urgent Care or Emergency Department visit, inpatient admission, or from specialty care.
• Patients receiving care, or are expected to need ongoing outpatient medical care, are assigned to a Primary Care Provider (PCP) and primary care team.
• Patients are informed of their PCP assignment and the electronic medical record indicates this designation to facilitate continuity of care system-wide.
• Primary Care services are available the main campus and any of our Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) with varying size and scope of services.

Scheduled clinic appointments are available, Monday through Friday with hours of operation from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm unless otherwise designated.

Except for medical emergencies, care is provided by scheduled appointments.

Emergency Services are provided in the Emergency Department on the VHSO Fayetteville campus only. However, for urgent conditions appropriate to be treated in primary care clinic settings and that do not meet ED severity of illness, same-day or next-day appointments in primary care are available.