UBMD Physicians' Group announces UBMD Primary Care

BUFFALO, N.Y. – To enhance primary care offerings in Western New York, UBMD Physicians’ Group has launched UBMD Primary Care, which combines UBMD Family Medicine and the Division of Internal Medicine-Pediatrics of UBMD Internal Medicine.

“UBMD Primary Care is taking patient-centered care to the next level,” declared Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, president and CEO of UBMD Physicians' Group, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo (UB). “By uniting UBMD Family Medicine and the Division of Internal Medicine-Pediatrics, we're building on the trusted foundation of primary care our patients have known and loved. This streamlined model strengthens our ability to offer expanded services, easier access to providers and a seamless experience for all ages.”

As of this week, the new UBMD Primary Care team began seeing patients at the UBMD Outpatient Center at the Conventus medical office building, located on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Patients will continue to see their physicians as they always have, and will continue to receive the care they have come to know and trust.

“By coming together, we are working as a team to bring our patients the combined, previously separate, expertise that already exists and building on our unique strengths,” said Jennifer Abeles, DO, site medical director for UBMD Primary Care and assistant clinical professor in the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School.

“We are very pleased at the opportunity to collaborate in this new initiative to ensure that the patients of UBMD receive the highest quality care on a consistent basis, regardless of the site of service,” said Brian M. Murray, MD, president and CEO of UBMD Internal Medicine and interim chair and associate professor of the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School.

UBMD Family Medicine’s other locations in Amherst on Hopkins Road and in Tonawanda on Sheridan Drive will also transition to providing care as UBMD Primary Care in the coming months. Along with the Conventus location in Buffalo, all three sites provide care to patients across the lifespan from pediatrics to geriatrics across Western New York.

“Under the name UBMD Primary Care, we are making ourselves more accessible to those in need of our services,” said Andrea Manyon, MD, president and CEO of UBMD Primary Care and chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the Jacobs School. “Family Medicine in our previous name represented the medical specialty in which we trained to provide primary care. By changing the name, not only do we better incorporate our care partners from the Division of Internal Medicine-Pediatrics, we provide clarity about the role we play in the health of our community.”

The change allows UBMD Primary Care to expand its insurance offerings, covering more persons in need of primary care. By integrating now, Manyon continued, the new practice expands the populations it can serve, better aligning the practice for future growth and expansion in Western New York.

“Primary care remains a critical need for all, but especially in the underserved community where many people do not have established relationships with providers who can help engage individuals in their health care goals,” said Abeles, who is also the director of the Adult Transitional Sickle Cell program.

“Primary care allows for long-term care and long-term health by establishing the relationship that looks at the whole patient,” she continued. “Our primary care providers work with patients to identify proper screening models for their individual needs. When issues are identified early, they are usually much easier to treat. With our established relationships, our patients come to trust us and seek out our care for their medical issues. We respect the trust that our patients place in us and we aim to bring that level of respect back to our patients.”

Physicians in the Division of Addiction Medicine in UBMD Family Medicine will also transition to UBMD Primary Care. The division’s specialists are board-certified physicians who treat medical conditions related to or exacerbated by addiction, in addition to diagnosing and treating addiction.

As an academic practice, all physicians in UBMD Primary Care are board-certified and are faculty members in the Department of Family Medicine or the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School at UB. In addition to providing patient care, they teach and supervise residents and medical students, as well as primary care health professionals.

“In our academic environment, a cornerstone is always learning together and from one another for the benefit of our patients” said Manyon. “Through UBMD Primary Care, medical residents and students from both medical specialty focuses will be in a unique position at Conventus to see the different approaches to providing whole-person care to deliver a better primary care experience. They will also gain more experience in interprofessional collaboration by being enmeshed with primary care providers from different training backgrounds. We hope that by seeing primary care delivered in this collaborative manner, our trainees will be encouraged to pursue primary care careers in Western New York.”

UBMD Primary Care will continue working with The Primary Care Research Institute at UB within the Department of Family Medicine, which brings together clinicians, health services researchers and other experts to address the common but complex issues surrounding contemporary health care within primary care, family medicine, addiction medicine and more.

“At UBMD Primary Care, we see our patients as partners in discovery,” said Brashear. “Through close relationships with their primary care physicians, our patients are also ideally positioned to participate in research studies that could advance lifesaving medical knowledge and improve care for generations to come.”

For more information, please visit the UBMD Primary Care website.

UBMD Primary Care is one of the practice plans within UBMD Physicians’ Group, the single largest medical group in Western New York. Our practice provides primary health care to patients of all ages and is based on the ongoing pursuit of academic medical knowledge and treatment. We are associated with the Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo.