Lovelace Urgent Care open in Bernalillo

BERNALILLO — After a little less than a year, the Lovelace Urgent Care in Bernalillo is open and taking patients.

President and CEO of Lovelace Medical Group Cliff Wilson stated March 19 that it was their first groundbreaking and opening in Bernalillo.

“We are very excited to serve our patients in this area. We continue to expand the footprint across the state to provide care where it is most needed. Residents of this neighborhood will now have access to urgent and primary care services that are all part of the Loveless Health System network of providers, hospitals and clinics,” he said.

A $5.3 million investment by Lovelace, according to Wilson, the building is around 8,100 square feet.

He added that Lovelace plans to open a similar location in Albuquerque’s Westside.

CEO Michael Kueker stated it was clear there was a shortage of primary care in the New Mexico market.

“From almost day one, we decided we had to do something about that. We’ve been recruiting physicians for a little while. We've been building buildings to try to grow to put those physicians in both here, and there’s more to come that we haven't really got past the pipeline at this point,” he said.

One point he talked at great length about was the accessibility of care.

“The medical group especially is committed to providing high quality care really in the neighborhoods where people live, and so having something at the hospital is great, but having something that's next door to you or in your neighborhood is much more accessible and easier to get into,” he said.

“Access is critically important in the state of New Mexico, and we are trying to make it a little easier to find a doctor and find a doctor who's in your neighborhood or marketplace.”

Kueker said Lovelace has about 300 physicians and advanced practice practitioners and plans to grow that number.

While Lovelace invested the $5.3 million, Kueker specified that the project had about $28 million in capital investments for the building alone and $130 million on compensated care to people in the hospital and in the medical group side of the business.

“The growth of the medical group, the growth of this location in Bernalillo, Rio Rancho, Sandoval County, it's good for the patients who live and work here. Obviously, it’s also good for the community, adding access to health care is good for development of this city, good for the development of the county, good for the development of the region. It brings business, which means jobs and jobs mean more economic development, and so we understand our role as taking care of patients, but also taking care of our community is important,” he said.

Dr. Richard Roche, director of primary care and quality medicine for Lovelace, said he has been in the area since 1986 as an internist and geriatrician.

“Before, people had to go, you know the closest Lovelace facility is the one down on Irving, so it's really nice to have these new services here,” he said.

He said the urgent care will treat all ages and demographics … So, we specialize in preventive care. We specialize in chronic care conditions, immunizations, quality measures. Medicine is really shifting from what used to be fee for service, and you get paid on how many patients you see, how well you take care of patients. I don't know why it took 50 years for all this to advance,” he said.

The urgent care is already fully staffed with two incoming nurse practitioners and a physician moving from New York, according to Roche.

“We've been very fortunate that we've been able to recruit almost 10 new primary care providers,” he said.

Roche also complimented the advancement of patient access with MyChart, an app that allows patients to see all of their care in one place, as well as the implementation of AI to transcribe patient visits.

“Now you have an app on your phone and I can sit here and talk to my patients just like I'm doing now, instead of sitting there, never looking at you and typing on the computer. In practice, one of the major complaints I heard from patients was, ‘A provider never even looked at me,’” he said.

State Sen. Craig Brandt, state Rep. Alan Martinez, state Rep. Josh Hernandez and Bernalillo Mayor Jack Torres all showed support of the project at the ribbon cutting hosted by the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce. Since the capital funding for the project was secured by legislation, Brandt and Martinez talked about a series of bills that helped the project reach fruition.