Mercy Joplin opens new clinic for older patients
Jan. 6—Mercy Hospital Joplin is opening a new clinic that focuses on improving medical care for patients 65 and older in the region.
Mercy's new 65 Prime+ Clinic, 2216 E. 32nd St., Suite 102, opened its doors this week and will serve only patients 65 and older.
Allison Rhodes, executive director of operations for primary care and population health, quoted Mercy's founder, Sister Catherine McAuley, that the clinic should "do the ordinary extraordinarily well."
"Primary care seems to be ordinary, but for our patients who are 65 and older, we're going to start doing it extraordinarily well," Rhodes said. "This clinic is going to offer longer appointment times for our patients, allowing them to be seen and taken care of for everything that's going on with them and not just quick appointments. Primary care in Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas for Mercy is growing rapidly, this is going to be the first of many of these that we have and we're really excited to kick this off."
Dustin Parker, practice manager for the Mercy 65 Prime+ Clinic, said Joplin's population of older residents is growing as the city grows, prompting Mercy to try to bring a new model of care to patients on Medicare.
"The foundation for this clinic is our care team, which will consist of our physician, Amanda Lewton," Parker said. "She'll have a nurse practitioner, and we'll have an RN and a brand new position called a care navigator. The care navigator will be a person who takes each patient through the entire process, hand in hand, and really guides them through the entire time they're here and between appointments. It's a great new position, a great new service to these individuals who will be using our 65 Prime+ Clinic."
City leaders and members of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce came to the event Thursday morning to cut a ribbon on the new clinic. They also got a chance to tour the operation.
The new clinic features four exam rooms, including one set up as more of a conference room so families, patients and the physician can talk about the patient's care and needs.
The clinic also features office space, a small lab and space to add more physicians in the near future.
"It's enough for three physicians and four advance practice providers," said Dr. Mark McNeamer, president of Mercy Clinics in Joplin. "We've built a little room for growth."
He said Mercy has a subset of patients who need "a lot more care, a lot more personalized care that is unique to health care in general. So what we've done is we've created a system to address both, one of which is for our older patients that need more time, more personalized and more predictive medicine."
Rhodes said the physician at this clinic will also serve a smaller number of patients.
"Our physician will have a panel of 600 to 1,000 patients," Rhodes said. "Most of our other family medicine physicians have about 2,000 to 3,000 patients, so they have a smaller group they will focus on. Mercy really feels it's important to start this work in Joplin. We have been the first ones to put it in place."
Rhodes said this is the first clinic of its kind in the Mercy system.
People can contact the Mercy 65 Prime+ clinic at 417-556-5320.
