News
Area's first retail clinic gives express treatment
July 12, 2007
By Tim Rausch | Staff Writer
Augusta Chronicle, July 13, 2007
In the time it takes most patients to flip through their second magazine in the waiting room of a physician's office, they could be examined and treated at a new retail health clinic that will open in Evans this month.
MedExpress will open July 23 on North Belair Road near University Health System's Evans campus.
Retail health clinics are a recent trend in health care. Most are housed inside chain pharmacy stores such as Walgreens and CVS, handling common illnesses and routine screenings with nurse practitioners.
In other areas, such clinics have been popular with the uninsured and with insured people who want quicker service than they can get from their family doctor.
With up-front pricing and no insurance requirements, clinics such as MedExpress are designed to make it easier for consumers to get basic, non-emergency health care.
"About 50 million people in the country are underinsured or uninsured and, for various reasons, find it difficult to get access into the health care system and very expensive because they have to pay cash. This is something that is aimed at that market," said Evans physician Dr. Fred Merrill III, the clinic's medical director.
The cost of services at the clinic will range between $49 and $95, less than a physician, urgent care facility or emergency room, clinic owner Phil McElhaney said.
According to a study of retail health clinics by the American Academy of Family Physicians, an average strep throat visit costs $132 at a physicians's office, between $100 and $130 at an urgent care facility and $328 at an emergency room. Mr. McElhaney said that charge would be $69 at MedExpress.
The cost is lower because the clinic uses nurse practitioners and limits its scope of services. It also doesn't have the overhead costs associated with filing health insurance claims.
Mr. McElhaney, an Augusta accountant and entrepreneur, said one of the clinic's marketing pitches is that a person can be seen and treated in about 15 minutes.
The nurse practitioners are overseen by Dr. Merrill, whose office at Family Physicians of Evans is across the road from the clinic. Nurse practitioners are registered nurses with advanced training that allows them to diagnose and treat common illnesses.
MedExpress will have a limited pharmacy inside.
"MedExpress works as a complement, not a replacement, to the relationship our customers should have with a regular doctor. If a patient doesn't have a regular doctor, we'll help get them one," Mr. McElhaney said.
Mr. McElhaney said the clinic won't act as an emergency room, and serious cases will be referred to an emergency room.
Mr. McElhaney said he got the idea to start a retail health clinic after going to one while on vacation.
"Both my wife and I were impressed by the care she received," he said.
If successful, Mr. McElhaney said he might look at opening more clinics around Augusta.
The clinic is at 400 Town Park Blvd., Suite 300. No appointment is necessary. The clinic will employ three full-time nurse practitioners, four part-time practitioners, a nursing director and three medical assistants. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 1 to 8 p.m. Sunday.