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VEGAS INC C OV E R STO RY Billboards advertise emergency room wait times PHOTOS BY STEVE MARCUS By Eli Segall HOT DOGS AND HEALTH CARE: Rina Silva, a medical assistant, helps Julia Gonzales schedule an appointment at a clinic at a Henderson Wal-Mart. The clinic accepts appointments but relies heavily on walk-in patients. Three local Wal-Marts have health care clinics run by Southwest Medical Associates. health insurance next year. Many of the newly insured are expected to stop visiting emergency rooms — where federal law enables them get treated for free for any ailment — and instead see regular doctors. Additionally, chronic obesity and diseases such as diabetes continue to worsen, and aging baby boomers are expected to have more health care needs in the coming years. The factors combine to create a strong business potential for retail clinics. ••• CVS has 640 drop-in clinics nationwide and wants 1,500 by 2017. About half of its patients do not have a primary care doctor. "We think we can be part of the solution," said Andrew Sussman, president of CVS' MinuteClinic network. Sussman isn't the only one. Retail chains and pharmacies have been opening health clinics in the valley since at least 2007. Walgreens has the most locally. Urgent care centers also are spreading. Nationwide, for the past several years, more than 300 clinics have opened annually. There now are 8,700, which see an average of 342 patients a week, according to the Urgent Care Association of America. The clinics often are in strip malls 16 20130422_VI01_F.indd 16 or stand-alone buildings near shopping centers, giving them good visibility and easy access. All of UMC's Quick Care clinics are "pretty much right on (a main) road or very close to it," UMC Associate Administrator John Eddy said. There even is a medical clinic franchise, Doctors Express, which was founded in 2005 in Maryland by a for- cian, have statewide franchising rights. They plan to open three to five more Doctors Express clinics in the valley over the next few years, marketing director Stephanie Glankler said . Advanced Urgent Care, which opened on Eastern Avenue in 2004, is just steps from an Extreme Mattress Outlet, a beauty salon and a GameStop Urgent care centers also are spreading. Nationwide, for the past several years, more than 300 clinics have opened annually. There now are 8,700, which see an average of 342 patients a week, according to the Urgent Care Association of America. mer emergency room doctor and his business partners. Doctors Express franchisees don't need a medical background to operate a clinic. There were 49 locations nationwide last year. The first (and so far only) Doctors Express in Nevada opened in July on Green Valley Parkway in Henderson. The clinic is in a retail center with a Petco, Staples, Layers bakery and New York Chinese Restaurant. Clinic owners Robert and Nonna Russell, neither of whom is a physi- video game store. The clinic sees about 50 patients each weekday and 30 to 40 a day on weekends. At least four other urgent care clinics have opened within five miles of the Advanced clinic, said co-owner Govind Koka, a family medicine physician. The term "urgent care" has become so popular that some doctors use it even when they don't run that kind of office, he said. "Some clinics, I think, just use it as a moniker just to get patients to come in," Koka said. Driving around the valley, they are hard to miss: Billboards advertising emergency room wait times at Sunrise, Sunrise Children's, MountainView and Southern Hills hospitals. A digital screen flashes a number that represents the average wait at each hospital. Static posters instruct people to text "ER to 23000" to get information about wait times sent to a cellphone. The facilities are owned by Nashville's HCA Holdings, a for-profit health care giant. The company runs similar ads online, including on VEGAS INC and the Las Vegas Sun's websites. HCA executives launched the texting campaign locally in November 2009 and posted the billboards in early 2010. The company now has about 20 billboard ads in the valley, said Stacy Acquista, assistant vice president of marketing for HCA's Las Vegas hospital network, Sunrise Health. The wait times are based on a fourhour rolling average and are updated every 30 minutes. They show the average time it takes for a patient to be seen by a physician or nurse practitioner after entering the ER. Emergency rooms are a key source of business for hospitals. Sunrise and Sunrise Children's expect to have 125,000 ER patient visits this year, up from a record 120,000 in 2012. "Sometimes the ER that's closest to you is not the ER that's fastest for you," Acquista said. HCA, which has billboard ads across the country, first used wait time texting for a marketing campaign in South Florida. Anthony Baradat, the man behind that concept, later formed the Miami company ER Texting Inc. to work with other hospital groups, business development manager Carlos Blanco said. Hospitals run the ads for several reasons. They help the facilities boost their visibility, make them more competitive with other hospitals and urgent care clinics, and improve patient satisfaction. "Being transparent helps," Blanco said. "Even if the wait time is not great." | 22 APRIL 2013 | 4/18/13 2:08:20 PM