By: Jo Lee Ferguson Special to the News-Journal
When two emergency room doctors looked around the hospital where they worked in Texarkana, they saw people who didn’t belong there. Flu patients, for instance, and people without primary care physicians who were there for non life-threatening ailments.
The answer Drs. Tim Reynolds and H.J. Platt developed was HealthCARE Express, an urgent care and occupational medicine clinic. They were joined as owners by nurse practitioners Steven Foltz and Kevin McCann, who also worked with them in the emergency room at Wadley Hospital.
“As ER doctors …. they realized the need was there,” said Tina Baiter, marketing director for HealthCARE Express.
That was 2004, and the business since has grown to three clinics, in Texarkana and Wake Village, and the newest clinic that just opened in Longview at 1509 W. Loop 281.
“They studied the Longview market and realized there was indeed a need to bring an urgent care clinic to Longview,” Baiter said.
While a couple of other urgent care clinics exist in Longview, there was still a need, she said. The decision to open a clinic in Longview was based on the numbers of people who use the emergency rooms at the city’s two hospitals and conversations with health care providers here.
The emergency rooms in Longview are two of the busiest in the region, Baiter said.
HealthCARE Express offers all the services a person would find at an emergency room except treatment for life-threatening injuries, she said.
“It’s beneficial for the patients,” Baiter said, explaining patients with insurance will pay lower co-pays at an urgent care clinic versus an emergency room. Customers without insurance also pay less.
Urgent care clinics can offer lower-cost service because their operating costs are “substantially different” in terms of staffing, supplies, building and insurance requirements, Baiter said.
Doctors at HealthCARE Express’ other clinics are staffing the Longview office for now, until Dr. Lynn Redels joins the Longview staff on Aug. 1. Two physicians assistants, Pamela Welch and DeWayne Bricker, help round out of the staff of 11 full-time employees. Three other physicians also will assist at the clinic.
The clinic’s website lists headaches, allergic reactions, eye injuries, sore throats, sprains, burns, lacerations, animals bites, pink eye, fever and other ailments among the common problems it treats. On the occupational medicine side, the clinic’s services includes workers’ comp, drug testing, breath alcohol testing, DNA testing, physicals and corporate wellness programs. Baiter said the clinic also offers 24-hour on-call drug testing, and can schedule onsite drug testing and physicals for companies that do group hiring.
HealthCARE Express is celebrating its opening by offering free physicals this month, and during a grand-opening event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 17. That event also will feature free blood-sugar screenings, ambulance tours for children, snow cones, popcorn and free Frisbees”for children.
There are no appointments for the clinic, but website check-in allows patients to place their name on the list, and staff members call when a room is almost ready.
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If you go
What: HealthCARE Express
When: Opened this past month; hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays
Where: 1509 W. Loop 281
Contact: (903) 759-9355. Visit http://healthcareexpress.us/ for more information.
As published in the Longview News Journal on Sunday, July 4, 2010.
