SPECIAL REPORT: Analyzing the rise of urgent care clinics and free-standing emergency rooms

You see the signs everywhere: urgent care centers, free standing emergency centers, hospital-based and hospital-affiliated emergency departments.

All these choices can make it difficult to decide where to go when you need to take your child for quick, qualified care without overpaying.

In El Paso alone there are more than 15 urgent care centers.

Dr. Alan Carpenter worked in emergency rooms more than a decade before opening Upper Valley Urgent Care.

“I told my wife, ‘let’s open a place that’s for people with minor problems and let them get in and get out.’ They were starting to open across America so I said, ‘let’s do that,'” Dr. Carpenter said.

A trade organization says 84% of urgent care patients get in and out within 60 minutes, but Carpenter says that’s not the only draw.

“The urgent care is going to be one of the most affordable. Currently, your doctor’s office visit is always the most affordable, but it may be a 4 week wait. The urgent care you can come in and be seen when you want to. It may cost a little more, but not nearly as much as an emergency room,” Carpenter said.

Next month, Dr. Bob Phelan plans to open his second Sun City Emergency Center in El Paso.

“There is a need for the free-standing emergency room. We are eliminating the wait you have in traditional emergency rooms and you are going to be seen by a doctor fast and it is cheaper,” Phelan said, “We are expensive like a hospital, but we are cheaper than a hospital.”

A 2010 state law allowed free-standing emergency rooms to be licensed.

Since then, nearly a dozen have opened in El Paso, including some affiliated with hospitals.

Phelan also believes free-standing emergency rooms excel by having everything in one place.

“You’re not having to go up two flights of stairs, the elevator, around the corner the to CT scanner like a traditional hospital, but your diagnostic computer is right there in the ER, your X-ray’s in the ER, your labs in the ER. All your resources are right here in the emergency room,” Phelan said.

Still in some cases you might ultimately end up at a hospital.

“Stroke, heart attack, major trauma, needing a surgery like a gall bladder, something as simple as saying I have right upper quadrant pain, turns out to be a gall bladder they are not going to be able to help you at a free-standing standalone. You are going to need to get a surgeon and you’re going to need to go to a hospital,” Dr. Kenneth Berumen said.

Berumen is the Regional Medical Director for The Hospitals of Providence and has a way to determine if you need a hospital-based ER or can visit a free-standing emergency room.

“If you really feel you are going to require an admission or require a surgery it’s best to come to a hospital-based ER or a hospital-affiliated ER,” Dr. Berumen said.

Nowhere is the proliferation and lack of fear over competition more evident than at the corner of Loop 375 and Edgemere.

Within a few feet you have a MedPost Urgent Care Center, the Hospitals of Providence ER, a Neighbors Emergency Center and a Sun City Emergency Center.

“We’re not so much in competition. We actually tend to complement each other. It’s a fair market. It’s a free market. It’s good for the public they have different choices,” Dr. Carpenter said.

Providence says there were more than 325,000 emergency department visits in El Paso last year.

“In a city our size, I think there is enough work out there for all of us. It’s just a matter of wanting to make sure people are directed to the correct place for their optimal care,” Dr. Berumen said.

Privately owned, stand-alone emergency centers, like Neighbors Emergency Center and Sun City Emergency Center, are not federally recognized and are not allowed to accept Medicare or Medicaid.

“There is a difference between free-standing ER’s and Hospital Affiliated models. Hospital Affiliated models can accept Medicare and Medicaid,” said Marcia Sonora, the Marketing Liaison for Neighbors Health System, Inc.