What’s Express Care? The Northshore’s about to find out.
The new STHS Express Care clinic at 71338 Louisiana 21 in Covington, which opens for business on Monday, Oct. 12, 2020, shouldn’t be seen as an urgent care clinic or an emergency clinic. Rather it’s a walk-in facility offering traditional medical services in non-traditional hours. (Photo by Tim San Fillippo / STHS)
By Mike Scott, mscott@stph.org
When it comes to healthcare, options are always a good thing.
Beginning 2 p.m. today (Monday, Oct. 12), Northshore residents will have another one.
That’s when St. Tammany Health System will open its new walk-in Express Care clinic at 71338 Louisiana 21, just a mile south of the health system’s Covington hospital and in the same complex as the soon-to-be relocated St. Tammany Pediatrics practice.
According to St. Tammany Health System Assistant Vice President Dionne Williams, who oversees the health system’s St. Tammany Physicians Network, the new Express Care clinic will offer all the services you’d expect from a traditional doctor’s office but – in an effort to expand the health system’s reach in the community – it will operate in the nontraditional hours of 2 to 10:30 p.m. every weekday.
Beginning in November, the clinic will also operate from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.
Upon its opening, the clinic will be staffed by nurse practitioner Kira Smith APRN, with additional healthcare providers expected to join Smith in the future.
Williams stressed that the STHS Express Care clinic shouldn’t be viewed as an urgent care clinic or an emergency care clinic. It will, however, be a convenient clinic.
“It’s a physician’s office clinic, just after-hours,” Williams said. “Anything we can handle today in our Folsom clinic or in our Mandeville clinic or in Covington or Madisonville we can handle at our new Express Care location.”
The new clinic isn’t the only change happening at 71338 Louisiana 21. Later this month, St. Tammany Health System’s Pediatrics practice will relocate to the same address from its former home in Madisonville.
Questions? Call the STHS Express Care clinic at 985-773-1660.