Texas MedClinic Opens 18th Location, 2nd New Braunfels Clinic
November 20, 2017
San Antonio, TX- San Antonio urgent care pioneer Texas MedClinic continues growth in South Central Texas with the opening of its second location in New Braunfels, the 18th clinic in the urgent care chain. Located on SH 46 in the Oak Run neighborhood, the second Texas MedClinic in New Braunfels is open 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, and offers urgent care for ailments like cuts, broken bones, allergies, stomach aches, headaches, rashes, fever and sore throats.
“New Braunfels has experienced tremendous growth over the last 5 years,” said Texas MedClinic Founder and CEO Dr. Bernard Swift, Jr. “With large, new neighborhoods like Vintage Oaks, CopperRidge and others along SH 46, we knew residents needed a resource for high-quality, urgent care that was convenient.”
Texas MedClinic is a walk-in clinic, no appointments are necessary. Through their unique online sign-in function, patients can choose their Texas MedClinic location, see how long it will take to see a provider, receive alerts via email, text or phone when the visit time nears.
In the urgent care arena, convenience, ease and quality medical care are paramount. As a hospital emergency room physician, Swift saw firsthand the need to provide a medical resource that was open after hours for ailments like flu, strep throat, cuts, abrasions, sprains and broken bones.
“Texas MedClinic is there ‘for Life’s Little Emergencies,’ providing care after doctor’s offices are closed, offering an alternative to hospital emergency rooms where the waits could be as long as 5-6 hours due to emergency and trauma doctors caring for people who were involved in serious car accidents, wounded by gun shots or suffered a stroke or heart attack,” said Swift.
Swift cautions consumers to understand the difference between the need for critical emergency care and urgent care. “If you need an ambulance, you need to go to a hospital.”
In the last decade, Texas has seen a proliferation of freestanding emergency rooms that market themselves as true emergency rooms, but do not have the medical staff or equipment to care for life threatening illnesses or trauma like a hospital-based emergency room.
“Full-service hospitals invest in specialty equipment and staff that can care for life-threatening illnesses or trauma and can move patients rapidly and seamlessly towards definitive care. A large facility fee is charged to all patients, regardless of the severity of the problem,” said Swift.
According to Swift, most freestanding emergency rooms are not connected to or located within a full-service hospital, and suffer from a lack of proximity to state-of-the-art definitive care services for problems like stroke, heart attack, or trauma requiring immediate surgery. “All those more serious patients must be transported to a hospital with the attendant, thereby generating additional cost and medical risk,” said Swift.
He added that freestanding emergency rooms provide the same services as urgent care clinics like Texas MedClinic, but charge hospital emergency room prices.
A recent study by Rice University “Freestanding Emergency Departments in Texas deliver costly care, sticker shock” showed that freestanding emergency rooms charged 10 to 15 times more than urgent care clinics for treatment of similar problems.
“It’s wise to understand your choices in urgent and emergency care before you need them,” said Swift. “Because I am pretty sure most don’t want to pay $2,000 for a flu diagnosis.”
Founded in 1982, Texas MedClinic has 14 locations in San Antonio, two in Austin, one in Round Rock and two in New Braunfels. Texas MedClinic’s first New Braunfels location on IH 35 has been open since 2006.
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Texas MedClinic was established in 1982 by Dr. Bernard T. Swift, Jr., as a group medical practice that specializes in urgent care and occupational medicine. Texas MedClinic has grown to 14 locations in San Antonio, two in New Braunfels, two in Austin and one in Round Rock. Texas MedClinic is staffed with 82 medical providers including physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners and over 450 employees.
Not a primary care practice, Texas MedClinic is not intended to replace a patient’s primary care physician. The privately-owned clinics offer patients who have urgent medical problems an alternative to the long waiting times at hospital ER’s, the new free-standing emergency rooms, and traditional family doctor offices when appointment times may be filled.
