(Clear Springs) — Skipping over any formal ribbon cutting, Guadalupe Regional Medical Center officials say they are pleased to announce their newly opened urgent care facility north of Seguin. Guadalupe Regional at Clear Springs Urgent Care officially opened its doors to patients two weeks ago. The facility is located in the heart of Clear Springs located off of State Highway 46.
Tasha Montez, the CEO of Guadalupe Regional Medical Group, says the urgent care facility is GRMC’s first branch off campus. She says the facility provides care for the entire family.
“An urgent care center is a bridge and an available access point for patients. So, we are an extension of primary care and other specialists that we work closely with because the urgent care is obviously meant to bridge the gap between their offices as well as the ER so it’s those patients who aren’t as emergent that need to go to the ER but maybe their primary care physicians can’t get them in that day or they are after hours so that’s how we bridge the gap. We also have next door to our urgent care center is Dr. Brett Earnest who is a primary care physician and he is new to our group and he serves as our medical director for that facility and he just brings a lot of knowledge and foresight to primary care services and is a really good addition to our group,” said Montez.
Montez says whether a walk-in or appointment, the facility offers a full range of urgent care services.
“We offer some in house rapid lab tests as well as x-rays so you have those people (who) drop things on their foot or they have maybe a little fracture or something that they fall and they need to get x-rayed, we can do that,” said Montez.
Of course like any medical facility during this COVID-19 pandemic, Montez says all necessary precautions are being taken at this time to keep everyone safe. She says the facility is also fully equipped as other primary physicians to screen for the virus.
“We work very closely with and we follow the same process as our primary care physicians do here in town. For example, we had a patient today who called the urgent care and said I have these symptoms and I think that I need to be seen so the patient came to the urgent care center. We brought the patient back. All of our staff used the appropriate PPE and processes that we’ve established. We did the preliminary testing. It came out negative for the flu and so that is when our provider then called our COVID physician on call and that discussion was had and it was determined that that patient did need to be tested and so that patient came to the hospital to get tested. So, we are following the same steps and it actually worked out very well. It’s a good collaborative relationship that our primary care physician’s and urgent care center have with our COVID team of physicians here at the hospital. So, it’s a good continuity of care. The processes have been worked out and we can replicate the process,” said Montez.
Montez says residents are invited to rely on the new urgent care service for all of their medical needs and believes it will be a major source of healthcare for anyone in the area.
“I just think it serves another area of access for our patients. We definitely identified that area on 46 as a big growth area and a big growth opportunity. Again, urgent care is not meant to be a primary care physician’s office so urgent care and we definitely stand by that idea of we are a bridge between their primary care physicians and we are here as an extension of them to help our patients and the individuals of this community get the right care that they need at the right place. So, our patients that are seen at the urgent care, their information is sent back to their primary care physician so that their primary care physician can know that they’ve been treated and what’s going, again, for the continuity of care for those patients,” said Montez.
Other services to be provided include sports and band physicals plus pre-employment physicals. Guadalupe Regional at Clear Springs Urgent Care is open seven days a week including holidays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The urgent care facility is located at 1761 S. State Hwy 46, Suite 104, New Braunfels.
GRMC Urgent Care Center opens in Clear Spings
