Progressive Community Health Centers has opened a new urgent care clinic at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in downtown Milwaukee and plans to open a primary care clinic there on June 1.
Aurora gave Progressive $1.7 million in 2015 to create the clinics.
The clinics, called 12th Street Urgent Care and Kilbourn Avenue Health Center, will be staffed by Progressive doctors, nurse practitioners and clinical support staff. Aurora health care providers will be be “leased” by Progressive initially to help staff the urgent care clinic while Progressive recruits doctors and nurses.
“Increasing access to vital services like urgent care and primary care is critical to enhancing the health of our community,” said Carolynn Glocka, president of Aurora Sinai Medical Center in a statement. “With these two new Progressive clinics, not only are we treating illnesses and injuries in a convenient location, we’re also offering an array of preventive services that will enable long-term wellness.”
Progressive Community Health Centers is a federally qualified health center that provides medical, dental and behavioral health services primarily to uninsured and undeserved populations in Milwaukee’s central city.
Anyone is eligible to receive care at both clinics, which will have financial counselors available to verify patients’ insurance and go over payment options with the uninsured.
Aurora Spokesperson Rachel Roller said the clinics will help Aurora better manage its emergency department resources.
More than 40 percent of people in Progressive’s service area don’t have access to a primary care medical practice, she said, and they and often use the emergency department care instead, which can tie up doctors and leave less time for those in need of acute emergency care.
Progressive Chief Medical Officer Allison Kos said many people who don’t have access to primary care often visit the emergency department to receive treatment for coughs, colds, sore throats and complications caused by chronic conditions, such as diabetes, that would not require emergency treatment of they were managed through clinical care.
“Our goal is both to deal with urgent care concerns, but also to be able to get folks into a primary care medical home,” Kos said.
The Kilbourn Avenue Health Center is in Suite 124 of the physician office building and will operate 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The other clinic, 12th Street Urgent Care, is adjacent to Sinai’s emergency department and is open 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Progressive Fund Development Manager Sarah Bailey said the organization expects around 2,000 unique patients to receive care from either clinic in the first year.
