Through a partnership with ChoiceOne, a Maryland-based health company, GMC operates three Urgent Care Centers in the county; Hamilton Mill, Sugar Hill, and newest at 2745 Loganville Highway in the Publix shopping center.
“It’s been a terrific partnership,” said Butch Marino, President and CEO of ChoiceOne. “Our primary objective in this relationship is a care coordination strategy where we can take and treat a patient with acute, episodic injury or illness, and if they’re in need of seeing a specialist like an orthopedist, we can refer them to physician with whom we partner. It saves the patient time and reduces a lot of anxiety and stress.”
Michael Boblitz, GMC’s Vice President of Planning and Business Development, says they got into the Urgent Care system as a practical solution to the growing demands and anxiety patients face when seeking care.
“We got into Urgent Care three years ago and started planning, really, four years ago, because we knew just how much the demand for our services was continuing to grow in Gwinnett,” said Boblitz. “We’re getting so busy with family, work school, whatever it might be, and we knew that health care options had to change, and so we needed to create local solutions. And it had to be non-traditional — you can’t just have eight to five health care facilities anymore.”
To accommodate the county’s growing population, all of these Urgent Care Centers are open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. every day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays. They aim to save patients time and money by allowing them to register for their appointment online and visit the provider at their own convenience.
For those needing quick access to care for non-emergency illnesses and injuries, Urgent Care can be a convenient alternative to primary care and emergency centers.
“That was important to us,” Boblitz said of their consumer-oriented model. “And we recognize that there are multiple ways to serve the community. So, we wanted to treat children and adults, and offer sports medicine because we see a lot of sports medicine and orthopedic-type injuries. All that can be done right here in the Grayson center. We also offer corporate health services because there’s a growing need for work-related injuries, pre-employment visits, physicals — things like that.”
The Grayson center is designed to have a calm, spa-like atmosphere. It houses six different rooms, so up to 100 patients can be seen in a single day by the skilled providers and cross-trained staff. Patients will also benefit from the greater GMC-Northside Hospital network, receiving referrals for orthopedic and other specialists in a succinct and stress-free process.
“It’s a lot more affordable, much easier to use, and that’s a primary reason we are partnering with ChoiceOne,” Boblitz noted.
The center’s ribbon cutting took place on July 11, 2019, from 5 to 7 p.m., and locals were invited to “Come Meet the Neighbors” at a community event held on Saturday, July 13 from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.
“We’ve done very well in our two centers in Hamilton Mill and Sugar Hill centers, and we’re going on about 25,000 visits. We rank in the top ten of centers in the nation, and we expect to see similar results here in Grayson,” said Boblitz.
For more information or to find a ChoiceOne – GMC Urgent Care location, click the following link: http://bit.ly/2XLcoun
