A family medicine practice is the only primary care specialty trained from day one to manage adults, children, and older adults under the same roof, and that scope of practice is what makes the family physician the default quarterback for a household’s medical care. The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) certifies physicians after graduation from an ACGME-accredited three-year family medicine residency, with continuous certification activities and a recertification cycle tied to ongoing professional development. The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) sets the scope-of-practice umbrella that includes preventive care, chronic disease management, women’s and men’s health, behavioral health, acute illness, minor procedures, and pediatrics from the newborn period forward.
The three practices profiled below all anchor on ABFM Diplomate physicians and run on the schedules the family medicine specialty considers standard of care: the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) grade A and B recommendations for screening, the CDC adult immunization schedule, the AAP/Bright Futures schedule for pediatric well visits, and the AAFP’s chronic care guidance for hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and behavioral health. Each clinic handles annual physicals, women’s and men’s preventive screening, acute walk-in illness, mental health screening at the primary care level, and the chronic disease workload that fills a family medicine schedule on any given day. Insurance acceptance, Direct Primary Care (DPC) membership economics, and the office workflow under the NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model are the operational variables that distinguish one practice from the next.
Quick Comparison #
| Firm | Credentials | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Heritage Medical Associates Primary Care | Founded 1991, 170+ providers across fourteen offices, primary care roster board-certified in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Internal Medicine-Pediatrics. | Annual and sports physicals, well-child visits, USPSTF screening, chronic disease management, on-site labs and imaging, intramural specialty referral. |
| East Nashville Family Medicine | Dr. Rozmond Lewis, MD and Dr. Taura Long, MD (ABFM Diplomate), Dr. David Carrier, MD, board-certified in Family Medicine with Mimi Gerber, FNP. | Annual physicals, same-day acute illness, gynecologic care, well child checks, chronic care management, in-house x-ray, evening hours. |
| Family Practice Associates of Southern Hills | Founded 1996 by Dr. George L. Holmes III, MD, Board Certified Family Medicine and AAFP Fellow, Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians past President. | Annual physicals, immunizations, EKG, treadmill stress testing, x-ray, full-service laboratory, chronic disease management, women's and men's screening. |
1. Heritage Medical Associates Primary Care #
Heritage Medical Associates was founded in 1991 and has grown into the largest independent multi-specialty physician group in Middle Tennessee, with over 170 primary care and specialty providers across fourteen offices in Davidson, Wilson, and Williamson counties. The primary care division sits inside that multi-specialty platform, which means a family medicine patient at the firm can route to in-house allergy, dermatology, gastroenterology, gynecology, neurology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, rheumatology, sleep medicine, and behavioral health without leaving the same electronic record or referral system. The group describes its primary care roster as board-certified in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Internal Medicine-Pediatrics, which gives a household the option of pairing a family physician with the adult or pediatric subspecialty depth a particular family configuration calls for.
The Nashville flagship sits at the 222 Medical Office Building at 222 22nd Avenue North, with the Saint Thomas West office at 4230 Harding Pike, Suite 500, and additional primary care locations in Bellevue, Brentwood, Franklin, Green Hills, Hermitage, Mt. Juliet, and Lebanon. The main administrative line for the practice is (629) 255-3469, and the new patient appointment desk runs through (629) 255-3584. Service breadth at the primary care offices includes annual and sports physicals, well-child visits, immunizations, diagnostic imaging, in-house laboratory services, basic dermatologic procedures, suturing for lacerations, USPSTF-grade screening for cardiovascular and cancer risk, treatment of acute illnesses and injuries, diagnosis of complex problems, management of chronic conditions including diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia, coordination with medical specialists, and management of hospitalizations through the group’s hospital affiliations.
Multi-Specialty Backbone #
The structural advantage of routing primary care through a 170-provider independent group is the speed at which a family physician inside the group can refer to a colleague in the same organization. A patient with newly elevated A1C can be scheduled with the Heritage endocrinology team without external referral paperwork, the same EHR follows the chart, and follow-up notes flow back to the primary care physician inside one record. The group operates onsite laboratory services and diagnostic imaging across multiple locations, and the network’s spread across Nashville, Bellevue, Brentwood, Franklin, Green Hills, Hermitage, Mt. Juliet, and Lebanon gives patients a choice of nearby offices when relocating across the metro.
https://www.heritagemedical.com/specialties/primary-care/
2. East Nashville Family Medicine #
East Nashville Family Medicine operates from 3443 Dickerson Pike, Suite 290, in Nashville’s 37207 zip, serving the east-side and Madison-area patient base that has historically been thinly served by independent family medicine offices. The clinic is reachable at (615) 469-5555 and runs Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., a schedule built around evening access for working families. Service mix on the published menu includes annual physicals, same-day acute illness visits, gynecologic care, well child checks, and chronic care management, with primary care for all ages under the family medicine scope.
The provider roster is led by Rozmond Lewis, MD, who earned her medical degree from East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine, completed family medicine residency at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga, has over twenty years in practice, and holds board certification in Family Medicine with hospital affiliation at TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center. Taura Long, MD, is a Diplomate of the American Board of Family Medicine, trained at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine with residency at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Jackson, and brings seventeen years of family medicine experience to the clinic. David Carrier, MD, completed his medical degree at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and his family medicine residency at Lancaster General Hospital, is board certified in Family Practice, and carries fifteen years in practice. Mimi Gerber, FNP, rounds out the team as the family nurse practitioner who handles preventive and acute primary care visits alongside the physician group.
East-Side Access #
The Dickerson Pike location is positioned to draw from Madison, Inglewood, East Nashville proper, and the Old Hickory corridor, and the evening hours through 7:00 p.m. four nights a week reduce the friction for patients who would otherwise default to an urgent care after the standard workday. The clinic publishes urgent care and walk-in availability for acute illness, in-house x-ray, treatments for routine illness, and minor surgical procedures, with a patient portal handling messaging, refill requests, and records access. The practice describes itself as welcoming new primary care patients across the family medicine roster.
https://www.eastnashvillefamilymed.com/
3. Family Practice Associates of Southern Hills #
Family Practice Associates of Southern Hills was founded in 1996 by George L. Holmes III, MD, who received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, is Board Certified in Family Medicine, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Holmes has served as Chief of Staff of Southern Hills Medical Center and as President of the Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians, the state chapter of the AAFP, and currently sits as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Southern Hills Medical Center. The Nashville office at 397 Wallace Road, Suite 100, serves the Brentwood, Berry Hill, and south Davidson County patient base, and the practice runs a sister office in Brentwood for residents of north Williamson County. The Nashville scheduling line is (615) 834-6166.
The clinic specializes in family medicine across the full age range and runs a procedure mix that includes annual physicals, immunizations, USPSTF-grade screening, EKG, treadmill stress testing, x-ray, in-office colonoscopy referral coordination, and a full-service laboratory under the same roof. The practice is part of the TriStar Southern Hills Medical Center campus, which gives the family physicians on staff direct access to inpatient admitting privileges, imaging escalation, and hospital-based subspecialty consultation when a primary care problem requires hospital-level workup. Chronic disease management for diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, asthma, and thyroid disease is core to the schedule, and women’s and men’s preventive screening runs on USPSTF and AAFP guideline cadence.
Founder-Led Continuity #
Thirty years of physician-led continuity at the same Wallace Road office is a meaningful operational signal in a primary care market where physician turnover and corporate ownership churn are the rule rather than the exception. Dr. Holmes’s leadership tenure at the Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians and at Southern Hills Medical Center anchors the group inside the local hospital and state-chapter governance that drives family medicine standards in Tennessee, and the office mix of family medicine plus in-house diagnostics keeps the workup loop short for the patients who need imaging, EKG, or laboratory results back to their physician inside the same visit.
https://www.tristarmedgroup.com/locations/family-practice-associates-of-southern-hills-nashville
Reference Notes #
ABFM Diplomate certification requires graduation from an ACGME-accredited three-year family medicine residency and passage of the ABFM Family Medicine Certification Examination, with continuous certification activities and a recertification cycle that the American Board of Family Medicine publishes and updates. The AAFP defines the scope of family medicine to include continuing primary care for patients of all ages and all genders, including preventive care, acute and chronic disease management, women’s and men’s health, behavioral health, and primary care obstetrics where the physician is credentialed for it. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force publishes grade A and B recommendations for screening that family physicians use to drive the annual physical workup, covering blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, depression, tobacco use, alcohol misuse, obesity, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer, and lung cancer screening among others. The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) publishes the adult immunization schedule annually, covering influenza, Tdap/Td, pneumococcal, zoster, hepatitis B, HPV, and COVID-19 vaccines among others, and the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) Adult Vaccine Plan supports access to ACIP-recommended vaccines for adults in the state. NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home recognition is awarded to primary care practices that demonstrate team-based care, population health management, care management and support, care coordination and care transitions, and performance measurement and quality improvement under standards published by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Direct Primary Care is a billing and care delivery model in which a patient pays the practice a flat monthly or annual membership fee for direct access to the family physician, with the practice operating outside of insurance contracting for the membership-covered services; Tennessee enacted Direct Primary Care legislation in 2016 that defined the DPC arrangement under state law. TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program, operates through managed care organizations including BlueCare Tennessee, Amerigroup Tennessee, and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan, and CoverKids serves as the state’s CHIP program for children whose family income exceeds Medicaid thresholds, with primary care network participation by family medicine practices a key determinant of TennCare and CoverKids access. ABFM and AAFP both maintain public-facing physician finders that allow patients to verify board certification status and AAFP membership directly. The AAFP also publishes practice management resources on the chronic care model that family medicine offices use to organize their hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia panels around population health metrics.
Selection Methodology #
The three practices above were filtered from the wider Nashville family medicine field using these filters: minimum tenure on Nashville-area patient care, verifiable American Board of Family Medicine Diplomate status on file, named practice brand and verifiable street address on the practice’s own website, and a published service scope that maps to patient need without scope-of-practice overreach. National rollups, mid-level-only practices without published physician supervision, and offices without verifiable street addresses were excluded.
Frequently Asked Questions #
Q: How do I verify a Nashville family medicine practitioner holds the right credentials?
A: Use the American Board of Medical Specialties Certification Matters lookup at certificationmatters.org, the Tennessee Department of Health practitioner profile at health.tn.gov, and the American Academy of Family Physicians member directory.
Q: What sets these three apart from the broader Nashville family medicine field?
A: American Board of Family Medicine certification is the threshold filter, and each physician above holds it under continuous Maintenance of Certification. The harder filter is whether the practice keeps full scope rather than narrowing to a procedure niche: obstetric care (an increasingly rare option), pediatric and geriatric depth in the same panel, joint injection and minor in-office procedures, and direct hospital privileges where the physician follows admitted patients rather than handing them off to a hospitalist on arrival.
Q: Are any of the three practices paid placements?
A: No. The three profiles above are editorial selections drawn from publicly verifiable sources. No practice sponsored placement.
Q: How should I prepare for a first appointment?
A: Confirm in-network status with your insurer, bring photo ID and a list of current medications, and request the practice’s published new-patient intake forms in advance to streamline the first visit.
Editorial Note #
This guide was published on 2026-05-11 and reflects research current as of that date. Verify licenses, phone numbers, and current business status before engaging any firm.