A new primary-care clinic that opened last week on the campus of Tucson Medical Center could result in shorter waits at the hospital's emergency room.
As a way of offering follow-up care to patients with no primary-care physician, Marana Health Center opened MHC Primary Care Dec. 1 at TMC, which is in Midtown at Grant and Craycroft roads.
Officials with both entities say the new clinic will give a "medical home" to patients after their emergency-room visit. But it could also redirect patients with non-urgent medical situations away from the emergency room.
"It's unique — the first one in this community. There are very few models like this," said Dr. Palmer Evans, senior vice president and chief medical officer at TMC. "One of the biggest problems in American health care is that so many underinsured patients are lost to follow-up care after they leave the hospital emergency department.
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"The new center will help a greater percentage of patients receive good continuity of care."
Between 90,000 and 100,000 patients visit TMC's emergency room per year. Nearly one in every 10 of them have no health insurance, and many more are underinsured. As a result, patients who have received emergency treatment often do not get the post-emergency follow-up care they require, TMC spokesman Michael Letson said.
"It enables us to give people a resource that's nearby. We are not sending them off into limbo," Letson said of the new clinic. "Typically when you leave the emergency room you are supposed to check with your doctor. But a big chunk of the population disregards that."
The center's hours are starting at Mondays through Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eventually as the patient load increases, the goal is to be open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., said Chris Oben, clinical administrator for the new center.
Oben said ultimately taxpayers could end up saving money through the venture.
Marana Health Center focuses much of its patient care on people insured through the state Medicaid program — the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) — and billings are far cheaper if a patient visits a family practice center instead of a hospital, he noted. AHCCCS patients comprise 46 percent of the patients who visit TMC's emergency room on an annual basis.
MHC Primary Care, which is leasing its space from TMC, will accept both walk-in patients and those with scheduled appointments. For patients who aren't eligible for AHCCCS, the center has a sliding fee scale based on income.
The new center is in a 5,000 square-foot modular building near TMC's emergency room entrance, and now decorated with Marana Health Center's purple and white colors. There's a staff of 10, including a doctor and a nurse practitioner, but more employees are expected to be added as the patient load grows, Oben said.
Evans and other officials use the term "medical home," when talking about the new center — the term refers to continuous and accessible primary care. It's been clearly demonstrated that if someone gets ongoing medical care from a primary physician as opposed to an emergency room, their long-term health will be better, Evans said.
"My sense is that there's a huge community need for this. Over time we'd hope people wouldn't have to keep coming into the ER, and the ER won't get as clogged."
Uninsured Americans
45.7 million
National
1.2 million
Arizona
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
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