McALLEN — South Texas Health Systems hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday morning to celebrate the grand opening of its newest clinic here.
The new Family Medicine and Outpatient Rehabilitation Clinic is located at 4200 Tres Lagos Blvd., Suite 140 in McAllen. According to STHS officials, the new facility is the first in the Tres Lagos area; however, the opening makes 10 family medicine clinics and four outpatient rehabilitation clinics in the Rio Grande Valley.
For Dr. Jeffrey S. Panting-Crespo, the attending physician for family medicine, this new clinic will help address various needs in the area including access to health care but also pediatric, weight and diabetes care. He also said the clinic may see as many as 25 patients a day.
“We are a family medicine clinic so we do see pediatric patients as early as three days of age, so that’s one need we’ll fulfill,” Panting-Crespo said. “There is another huge need in terms of obesity and diabetes in the area … we are already tackling that very aggressively.”
Not only will the clinic focus on helping physical health but they also hope to fill the need for mental health services.
In fact, Panting-Crespo explained that the goal of the clinic is to attract more doctors that can help address mental health.
Although Thursday’s event officially opened the clinic to the public, Panting-Crespo explained they have already been open for six weeks. During that time they have “already helped a ton of patients, patients who are motivated and ready to improve their lives.”
The clinic is currently accepting patient walk-ins and appointments. There is no wait time for walk-ins, according to Panting-Crespo.
“I think it’s just getting them registered, getting them checked in and getting seen by the doctor within 5 to 10 minutes,” he added.
Although the wait time is close to none, Panting-Crespo also explained that it’s important to limit the number of patients seen to expedite and prioritize care.
“My staff and I, personally follow up with pharmacies, with patients, with insurance companies to ensure that patients get their medications covered, we do prior auths,” Panting-Crespo said. “I think to keep that quality of care at a premium we really need to find that magic number for us and that may be probably about 25 (patients) per day.”
