St. Louis area health centers are providing or contracting to outside sources for urgent care services.
Urgent care involves walk-in visits for treatment of medical issues requiring immediate attention, though not serious enough to require hospital emergency visits, such infections, stitches for cuts, bone breaks, x-rays, and some breathing treatments.
For patients enrolled in the Gateway to Better Health demonstration project, the stop-gap for low income residents (in the absence of Medicaid expansion), services are now offered at some of the area health centers or contracted out to other health system urgent care facilities.
Myrtle Hilliard Davis Comprehensive Health Centers in St. Louis recently expanded its medical services at its Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. location to include urgent care with Monday through Saturday hours.
Dwayne Butler, CEO of Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers, said Gateway patients at People’s would go to SSM Urgent Care because of its long track record in this area.
“The partnership to use SSM Urgent Care for our Gateway clients gives them a level of service in urgent care that I think is unequal in the community. Opening up that option to our clients, we believe is a win-win for everyone,” Butler said.
“Another thing we are doing … the beginning of February, we will offer our services on Saturdays. That will be for all Peoples Health Center patients.”
People’s Saturday hours will begin with 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. at its Delmar site.
“We will be focusing on pediatrics and pediatric dental health as well,” he added.
Butler said that focus on children’s health through appointments and walk-in is in response to its backlog of needed services for patients in pediatric medical and dental care.
“We are going to be responsive to the community, so if our hours need to change, if we need to add hours, perhaps later hours, we are going to do that as well,” Butler said.
SSM is also the go-to urgent care provider of choice for Family Care Health Centers.
“They are our hospital partner; that’s where our physicians admit,” said Bob Massie, CEO at Family Care Centers.
St. Louis County has no plans to offer urgent care at its locations, according to a St. Louis County Department of Health spokesperson.
Urgent care and specialty care for low-income residents provided at St. Louis ConnectCare and its Smiley Urgent Care Center ceased when it closed operations and filed for bankruptcy late last year.
As with the specialty care, the St. Louis health community has stepped in for the continuum of care, according to the St. Louis Regional Health Commission.
“Within six weeks of ConnectCare closing, those folks turned around and were able to open new services,” said Robert Freund, CEO of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission. “In the six weeks in-between, it’s not like patients were not getting care; the health centers were doing an excellent job of making sure the patients got in for urgent visits if they sick. We’ve expanded that ability now, so that they are official urgent care sites.”
