Pinnacle Urgent Care wants to dispel what it sees as the myth of
‘drive-through’ care
Urgent Care clinics in California have developed a reputation as
a pseudo drive-through health-care option, almost like driving up
to a speaker box, selecting your ailment and then waiting for the
medicine to be handed out through the window before driving
away.
Pinnacle Urgent Care wants to dispel what it sees as the myth of ‘drive-through’ care
Urgent Care clinics in California have developed a reputation as a pseudo drive-through health-care option, almost like driving up to a speaker box, selecting your ailment and then waiting for the medicine to be handed out through the window before driving away.
Most everyone has heard the moniker “doc in a box.” But medical care is a constantly evolving discipline, and with qualified physicians working at the “take-out window,” a fast-food connotation might be ill conceived.
Pinnacle Urgent Care, with offices throughout the tri-county area, is making a strong marketing push to reverse the image of drive-through care.
The doctors who operate the urgent-care clinic also are the owners. They have an investment in the communities in which they work and they are committed to delivering quality medical care, said Pinnacle Chief Executive Officer Ernesto Alvero.
Pinnacle operates seven facilities, including the one in Hollister, three in Salinas, one in Gilroy, one in Watsonville and one in Los Banos.
Unlike a traditional doctor’s office, the facility operates seven days a week and has at least one physician and one physician’s assistant on duty per shift.
The offices operate exactly like a traditional doctor’s office, Alvero said, with the exception of the extended schedule and doctors are more readily available without appointments. The doctors at Pinnacle Urgent Care come from different backgrounds, but have medical training from some of the finest medical schools in the nation including Stanford, Harvard, Yale and University of California, San Francisco.
Pinnacle is a multi-specialty clinic and features orthopedic surgeons, general surgeons and internists.
“This promotes continuity of care and a broader scope of medical attention all in one location,” Alvero said.
“Where a person may not be able to see their regular doctor for two or more days, our offices are always open and don’t require an appointment. We only close three days per year and we’re always open on the weekends,” said Hollister clinic manager Amy Breen-Lema.
Urgent care facilities certainly fill a need, said San Benito County Medical Society President and Hollister physician Peter Coelho.
“They provide a terrific service and fulfill needs a physician can’t, but unfortunately they’re not usually coordinated with the local hospitals. As technology improves follow-ups will become easier,” Coelho said.
He stressed that there are problems with continuity of care. With an urgent care clinic, the doctors don’t know the patients in the same way that the family physician might .So, they don’t know the patients as far as what ailments they’ve had in the past, what treatments work and what doesn’t.
“The problem with urgent care is its unfortunately disjointed. It’s a good patch for after-hours medical care and I would love to see more integrated programs,” Coelho said.
At the company’s Hollister location it is currently seeing between 85 to –100 patients per day, according to Breen-Lema and since they have nearly outgrown their existing facility, they are discussing future expansion. At Pinnacle Urgent Care’s Gilroy location, physician Troy Manchester is spearheading the effort to switch to paperless medical records, which make confidentiality easier for doctors. Manchester has been working on the program for the last year and Gilroy’s location is the first site to implement the program.
“We’re trying to be leaders in this field,” Alvero said.
Pinnacle offers primary care, urgent care, some specialty medicine and occupational health care. In addition to the regular patients Pinnacle works with, it also does several types of drug screenings including blood, saliva and hair for municipalities and many companies as well.
The company has been around for five-and-a-half years and in that time has expanded into Arizona. Annually the company reports they service between 1,200 and 1,400 employers in California alone and Alvero said that several insurance companies have them listed as a Preferred Provider.
