It includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as

in public health.

Providing health care services means "the timely use of personal health services to achieve
the best possible health outcomes".

[3] Factors to consider in terms of health care access include financial limitations (such as
insurance coverage), geographical and logistical barriers (such as additional transportation
costs and the possibility to take paid time off work to use such services), sociocultural
expectations, and personal limitations (lack of ability to communicate with health care
providers, poor health literacy, low income).

While the definitions of the various types of health care vary depending on the different
cultural, political, organizational, and disciplinary perspectives, there appears to be some
consensus that primary care constitutes the first element of a continuing health care process
and may also include the provision of secondary and tertiary levels of care.

Primary care[edit] Main article: Primary care See also: Primary health care, Ambulatory care,
and Urgent care

Hospital train "Therapist Matvei Mudrov" in Khabarovsk, Russia[9] Primary care refers to the
work of health professionals who act as a first point of consultation for all patients within the
health care system.

Primary care involves the widest scope of health care, including all ages of patients, patients
of all socioeconomic and geographic origins, patients seeking to maintain optimal health,
and patients with all types of acute and chronic physical, mental and social health issues,
including multiple chronic diseases.

In the United States, primary care physicians have begun to deliver primary care outside of
the managed care (insurance-billing) system through direct primary care which is a subset of
the more familiar concierge medicine.

[13][14] The World Health Organization attributes the provision of essential primary care as
an integral component of an inclusive primary health care strategy.