New Hampshire-based ConvenientMD, a privately owned chain of urgent care centers, plans to open its first Maine location in Westbrook, as well as centers in Portland and Scarborough.

There are already eight walk-in health clinics within 10 miles of the proposed downtown Westbrook site.

Mercy Hospital operates a Mercy Express Care in Westbrook, as well as one in Gorham, and Maine Medical Center’s Brighton FirstCare in Portland is not far from the city line.

The expanding urgent care industry reflects a growing appetite for quick, convenient health care. Faster than making a doctor’s appointment or waiting in an emergency room, the walk-in clinics will treat anything from insect bites to broken bones.

ConvenientMD currently has eight centers, all in New Hampshire, with a ninth coming soon to Portsmouth, according to its website.

The website says patients can even get physicals for school at ConvenientMD’s locations and that those without insurance can get care at costs far lower than at the emergency room, which is often overrun with people who don’t need to be there.

Max Puyanic, co-chief executive officer of ConvenientMD, said Sunday night that the company, which opened its first urgent care center in 2012, hopes to open the Westbrook clinic by the end of this year and in any event to have all three Greater Portland clinics up and running by the end of 2017.

The Westbrook Planning Board will review a sketch plan Tuesday for the proposed ConvenientMD clinic on the former site of the Maine Rubber Co. building, which was long seen as an impediment to downtown development and torn down in 2013.

Puyanic said the company has prospective sites in Portland and Scarborough but would not say where. He said the downtown location in Westbrook was chosen purposefully because the company believed it would be most convenient for patients.

Lisa Letourneau, executive director of Maine Quality Counts, a nonprofit health care advocacy group, said having a downtown location dovetails with the main selling point of urgent care centers: convenience.

She said her impression about the customer base is that it’s mostly people who don’t have a lot of time and are more likely to visit a doctor after hours, down the street from their house, than take a day off from work to go to a doctor’s office.

In addition to hospital-run centers, other privately owned urgent care clinics have opened in Maine in recent years, including Texas-based giant Concentra with locations in South Portland, Lewiston, Norway, Augusta and Bangor.

U.S. HealthWorks has locations in South Portland and Brunswick, and ClearChoiceMD opened a Scarborough clinic just over a year ago.

A market research report published in November by IBISWorld said urgent care centers represented a $16 billion industry and are “one of the fastest growing segments of the American healthcare system.”

An average of 14,000 patients per year visit each urgent care center in the United States, with each clinic handling about 40 patients per day, according to the Urgent Care Association of America.

Ninety percent of patients saw a provider within 30 minutes and 84 percent were in and out of the clinic within an hour, the association said.

Puyanic said patients spend an average of 45 minutes in ConvenientMD clinics and visits cost an average of $150, though patients with insurance usually only have to pay a co-pay. He said the company accepts almost all insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare.

Letourneau called the growing demand for urgent care centers – evident by the number of them that continue to pop up – a “wake-up call” for the primary care community to make changes to meet consumer demands.

The downside for patients, she said, is that they don’t develop a long-term relationship with their doctors.

“Maybe they didn’t connect that this is your third sore throat and maybe there’s something else going on,” she said. “It’s not the same as someone who knows you over time.”

Puyanic said ConvenientMD plans to work closely with primary care physicians in the area.

Dr. Bill Sturrock, president of the Maine Academy of Family Physicians, said private practices aren’t feeling threatened by the growing popularity of urgent care centers – they have plenty of work. But, he said, he’d like to see more coordination, such as access to medical records, between the clinics and primary care doctors.

“We really shouldn’t be fighting for patients – we should be collaborating to provide the best care,” he said.

 

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