ClearChoiceMD consolidation helps maintain patient-first goal

GILFORD — In naming New Hampshire the No. 1 state in the country for health care, WalletHub cited the fact the Granite State has the greatest number of certified urgent care centers per capita. Among them is ClearChoiceMD, which — with its acquisition of Carewell Urgent Care — now operates 30 medical offices in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Jason LaBossiere, regional practice manager for ClearChoiceMD, said, “The biggest value that we have is, you get out of work now, you can go get seen, instead of waiting at the emergency room for eight hours for, like, a little ear pain or something.

"We can do pretty much everything for you, and in a short amount of time."

One of the earliest urgent care sites ClearChoiceMD opened was at Belknap Marketplace in Belmont. That location recently closed as part of a merger with the Gilford ClearChoiceMD center, but Regional Manager Randy Hinds said the merger was “the best decision that we’ve made in a long time.” With sites in Gilford, Tilton and Alton, patients in the Lakes Region still have easy access to the medical services they need.

“[Belmont] was one of our busiest centers for a long time, sometimes even in the hundreds of patients, and at one point, we had three providers working there,” Hinds said. “But that was before we built Tilton; that was before we built Gilford; that was before ConvenientMD came in — and they’re a direct competitor to us. There’s a new urgent care in Meredith that operates out of Speare Memorial Hospital.”

As urgent care locations multiplied, the patient load in Gilford and Belmont declined, each seeing only 15 to 17 people on slow days. By consolidating operations in Gilford — an office located close to Laconia Airport and Weirs Beach — they provided ready access to the tourists who make up a significant portion of the Lakes Region population.

“Our volume this summer has been in the 50s,” Hinds said.

The merger could happen seamlessly because Tammie Carignan was serving as practice manager for both Gilford and Belmont, and all health providers had worked in both locations.

“They’re just all serving out of Gilford now,” Hinds said.

Also joining them was Mark Aronson, a retired doctor who had been with LRGHealthcare for three decades. “He works two days a week for us,” Hinds said. “He moved with us over to the Gilford center, and boy, it has been amazing for us.”

Urgent care facilities serve as a bridge between primary care and emergency departments. Those in need of care may not be able to wait for an appointment with their primary care doctor, but do not need the enhanced services of an emergency department.

Hinds, who began his career in the Franklin Fire Department and moved on to nursing, was working in the emergency department at LRGHealthcare before taking his current job.

“Obviously,” he said, “what you see in an emergency room is that you see a vast amount of people going there because they don’t have the ability to get into their primary care, and not all of them require emergency room care, right? And that’s certainly delaying sometimes some of the care to the people that are truly having an emergency.”

He related that, as triage nurse in Franklin Hospital, a child came to the emergency room with an earache.

“I would say to them, ‘Hey, look, drive to Belmont. You’re going to see that provider in Belmont. He’s going to treat you. He’s going to give you the antibiotics in the clinic. You won’t have to go to the pharmacy.'”

Appointments are not necessary for urgent care, and people generally are in and out within an hour.

Those wanting to make appointments are able to do so at ccmdcenters.com.

Hinds noted that, for more serious injuries, providers can arrange for patients to get the care ClearChoice cannot provide.

“Occasionally, those emergencies — let’s call it a heart attack — we assess them initially, but need to send them to a higher level of care for more testing, and so we send those folks to the hospital a lot of times by ambulance. Sometimes people refuse the ambulance, and they go by private car, but obviously, your safest bet is to go by ambulance.”

For broken bones, they may splint the break and arrange for a visit to an orthopedic group.

“We do X-rays at our centers,” he noted. “We’re really as close to the emergency room as you can get, but not the emergency room. We stay very connected to our hospital partners. We’re a big fan, in my region, of Concord Hospital and Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and we work very closely with Catholic Medical Center. Jason, in his region, works very closely with Exeter Health.”

The New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont centers also offer some prescription services through PD-Rx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

“We have approximately 25 broad-spectrum [medications] that manage most of things that you see in an urgent care,” Hinds said, “and you would pay us up front, and our cash price is $15 for the prescription. That works for some people; that doesn’t work for everybody. If you’re on a government insurance, we can’t charge you. Like a Medicaid person, we can’t sell to them.”

They do not offer narcotics or anti-psychotic medications, and health laws in Massachusetts and Rhode Island do not allow urgent care centers to dispense any medications.

Dr. Marcus Hampers of New London, who trained at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, founded ClearChoiceMD in 2013, opening urgent care facilities in Portsmouth, Lebanon and Belmont, as well as four in Vermont, before adding centers in Keene and Maine. As the company grew, it merged with Carewell Urgent Care, which operated in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

LaBossiere said the connection with well-known Carewell Urgent Care makes it easier for customers.

“Being in the Lakes Region, the majority of people up there at this time of year are from Massachusetts or Rhode Island. When it comes to any sort of sort of advertising, we’re incorporating both logos, because now it connects everyone together, and it shows them that, 'Hey, if you’re from down in Mass. and you are at ClearChoice, we’re together — Carewell is the same as ClearChoice.'”

“We are actually owned by a company called the Bridge Health Holdings,” Hinds explained. “If you’re seen in Carewell in Lexington, let’s say — maybe you’re playing soccer in Lexington and got injured — and you had stitches placed, but you live in Laconia, you’re welcome to visit our Gilford center. We’ll take out the stitches for you, because we can support what they’ve done there, so you don’t have to go back.”

ClearChoiceMD is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. Hinds said the company’s founder, Hampers, “really wanted to provide health care for everybody. He didn’t care whether you were a businessman with insurance, or you’re a carpenter with no insurance. He wanted to make health care affordable so that everybody could seek health care. I think that’s the other reason why I was so anxious to join, because, as a nurse, as a paramedic, my goal is patient first. How can we help the patient? We’ve got to be patient-focused, and we’re bridging that health care gap.”