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U.S.'s largest urgent care clinic opens outlet in Fort Oglethorpe on Battlefield Parkway
Urgent care by the numbers
* 9,300 - Number of walk-in, stand-alone urgent care centers in the United States * 110 million - Number of emergency room visits a year * 14-27 percent - The share of hospital emergency room visits that could be handled by urban care centers, saving up to $4.4 billion a year * 144 - Number of American Family Care centers in the U.S., including five in the Chattanooga area Sources: American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine, American Family Care
Dr. Glenn Harnett has a rejoinder for anyone who thinks of an urgent care clinic as a "doc-in-a-box."
"We've got the best docs. And you ought to come see our box," said Harnett, the chief medical officer for American Family Care (AFC), the nation's largest chain of urgent care clinics.
The company opened its 144th medical office Friday on Battlefield Parkway in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., near the new strip mall anchored by the Marshall's department store.
The interior of an AFC clinic has IKEA-like furniture and hardwood floors, Harnett said, instead of dingy clinic decor and dirty carpeting. The atmosphere is hushed, he said, because clinic employees use iPads to order such services as the digital X-rays that are available on-site, instead of calling down the hallway.
"We're going to have electronic kiosks," Harnett said, so patients can sign in without filling out paper forms.
Officials at the privately-held company say that the urgent care clinic business is booming as a faster, less-expensive alternative to trips to the emergency room or visits to a primary care doctor, which can take months to schedule.
"If you stub your toe on Saturday afternoon, you can go get it taken care of," said Fort Oglethorpe Mayor Lynn Long. "It's fantastic. It's so great, that my wife has already been there as a patient."
The Fort Oglethorpe clinic will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Christmas. Its lead physician is Vincent Mirarchi, D.O.
The company puts patients first, Harnett said, and the motto that greets patients inside the 12-room clinic is, "It's all about you."
"Every single patient that was in here today will get a phone call - how are you feeling?" he said. "We don't have any problem getting people to come back, once we get them in the door."
While urgent care clinics often are housed in a strip mall, he said, AFC's clinics stand alone in front of large retailer. The Fort Oglethorpe clinic eventually will open a drive-through pharmacy.
"We know a little bit about site development," Harnett said. "We're a big company. We've got 1,200 employees."
AFC's Fort Oglethorpe location accepts all major health insurers, he said. The office will feature a full suite of occupational medicine and workers compensation services, the company said, including OSHA-mandated medical surveillance exams, D.O.T. and non-D.O.T. drugs screens and physicals, and blood alcohol tests.
The 4,500-square-foot Fort Oglethorpe clinic cost $2 million including the purchase of the land, design and construction of the building, and the high-tech equipment inside, said William Koleszar, AFC's chief marketing officer. Freeman & Associate of Columbus, Ga., built it.
AFC now has five clinics in the Chattanooga area. Another is on Cummings Highway in Lookout Valley. And AFC agreed in 2013 to purchase Doctors Express, a chain with 63 clinics, including one on Gunbarrel Road, one on Highway 153 and one on Mouse Creek Road in Cleveland, Tenn.
Fort Oglethorpe lost an urgent care clinic over the winter with the closure of another nearby urgent care clinic operated for nearly two years by Hutcheson Medical Center, which is now in bankruptcy proceedings.
AFC is owned by Dr. D. Bruce Irwin, who founded the business 33 years ago. Irwin was the son of a cobbler who put himself through medical school while working in the emergency room, according to a company history. He discovered that some non-critical emergencies were clogging up the waiting rooms of hospitals so he sketched a business plan for a network of urgent care clinics on a notepad.
In a 10-year span, from 1994 to 2004, the number of hospitals and emergency rooms decreased by 9 percent, while emergency room visits increased by more than 1 million visits a year, according to the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine.
As the number of hospitals and emergency rooms decline and patient demand continues to grow for emergency services, Koehler expects to add more AFC facilities. Among the nearly 10,000 urgent care clinics in the U.S., American Family Care is already the biggest.
"We're the leader, by a long shot," Koehler said.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.