By Taylor Boyd
To address the lack of local primary health care in the area, Martinsville Urgent Care will begin offering primary care services on Wednesday, May 6.
Since taking over the business in 2020, Owner Amber Patterson, FNP-C, said many local healthcare providers and physicians have retired over the past three or four years.
“A lot of the doctors in our area were here from my childhood, so a lot of them are retiring and there became a huge need for primary care in our area,” she said. “We always ask who your primary care doctor is so we can send your records, and a lot of patients were without a primary care. We decided to expand and fill that need.”
Patterson said the primary care office will focus on chronic health issues, preventive care, and maintenance and routine healthcare, while the urgent care side is more for walk-ins, sick visits, broken ankles, and other issues that need to be addressed quickly.
“Immediate needs that people have a difficult time getting into their primary care for,” she said.
While the doors will open on May 6 for primary care, Patterson said applications for new patients are already being accepted. She estimates about 15 to 20 applications have been accepted so far.
“But we haven’t done a whole lot of advertising. Those are just patients that we’ve picked up that have come into the urgent care without doctors and we’ve referred them,” she said. “I’m trying to do a soft opening just to get a few patients in here and see how things move, see how our systems are working, get the routine working out, all the kinks worked out.”
We will probably do a grand opening this summer sometime,” Patterson said, adding that she hopes many will come to the facility for primary care services.
“Martinsville is in between Roanoke and Greensboro, so it’s a drive for most people to be referred” to outside facilities, she said. “I think in our community it’s difficult to be able to drive, to have to drive an hour to get to your doctor’s appointments. So having something local I’m hoping it’s going to be able to meet the needs.”
Because the new space has room for four providers, Patterson said the projection of how much the staff can handle is high, “but at first we’re starting with one provider.”
Patterson will serve as the facility’s first provider.
“Nurse practitioners can practice autonomously in the state of Virginia as long as you have the licensure for that. We have a medical director at the urgent care and he will also serve as the medical director at the primary care, but he’s in a supervisory position,” she said.
Patterson said the role of nurse practitioners was designed to help fill the medical gap, especially in rural communities where there are not enough medical doctors.
“To me, it’s inspiring to try to encourage other nurse practitioners to do the same because ultimately that’s what our profession was created for,” Patterson said. “The main thing is to try to get medical care, routine health care, to my community which is with high rates of chronic conditions.
“The rates in a small, rural community are very, very high and the reason is access to care. So the point of the business is to improve access to care in our area, especially in a time when there are a lot of baby boomers retiring,” Patterson said.
A controlled number of Medicaid patients will be accepted, and all insurance plans will be accepted.
For more information or to apply for primary care, go to www.martinsvilleuc.com or call 276-634-0010.
