Expansion of urgent care clinics part of an effort to reduce emergency room visits

A new urgent care clinic and an expanded one have opened within a month of each other in Glendale, and it’s no coincidence. They are part of a push to cut down on the number of costly trips to local emergency rooms.

Glendale Adventist Center recently started operating its fourth urgent care site in the community at 1975 Verdugo Blvd. in Montrose.

The under-served foothills were first targeted for a site specially designed for primary care and treatment of non-life threatening injuries in mind about two years ago, according to hospital officials.

With more insured people in the market today, and others moving into managed care for the first time because of the Affordable Care Act, there’s been a movement to make certain treatments cheaper and keep patients out of emergency rooms when possible, said Roland Fargo, senior vice president of strategy and business development for Adventist Health.

“For us, it’s about venues where people have easy access to care without having to go through an expensive hospital,” he said.

So, those who head to the Montrose site — staffed with physicians and other healthcare staff members — can get treated for minor injuries, burns, bug bites and get X-rays as well.

Fargo said there are plans for additional urgent care sites in the area.

After seven years in Glendale, Manuel Momjian, owner of Urgent 9 Urgent Care, moved his business down the street to a bigger space at 1000 N. Central Ave.

There, a patient with a bump to the head after falling off a ladder while pruning a tree, for example, can get treatment and a CT scan for about $500. The same procedure at a hospital emergency room would cost as much as $4,000 to $7,000, he said.

“Hospitals traditionally have not been very good at keeping costs down,” Momjian said.

Urgent 9 is staffed with a small group of physicians.

Part of his expansion was to offer more treatments that, at one time, were only offered at hospitals such as CT scans, cardiac monitoring, X-rays, short-stay observations and intravenous treatments, Momjian said.

Despite having the Affordable Care Act in play, there are still too many people out there who are uninsured or underinsured with high deductibles, Momjian said.

He said sometimes those who have insurance are more willing to come to his business in order to spend less.

“A lot of time, they will pay out of pocket because it’s going to cost them less to do it that way,” Momjian said.