A medical clinic being built in Wagoner may be more of a benefit than a source of competition for the local hospital, say the clinic’s backers.

However, the Wagoner Community Hospital chief executive officer says while the hospital welcomes the new clinic, it will continue with plans to provide a hospital-sponsored urgent care clinic.

Urgent Care is scheduled to open March 1 on U.S. 69 at 1317 S. Dewey Ave. Childers Medical Group of Tahlequah is in charge of the project. They already operate an urgent care facility in Tahlequah.

Owner Kelly Childers said his clinic will not be a business threat to existing health care providers.

“It’s not so much the hospital that would worry about this as the family practice doctors in the area,” he said. “That’s what happened in Tahlequah, but it didn’t take that long before idea turned completely around. We treat the patients well and create all-electronic charts, then send them (patients) right back to their family doctor.”

Childers said he has been in regular communication with Wagoner Community Hospital CEO Jimmy Leopard.

Leopard said that communication did not start until just before the clinic broke ground in Wagoner.

“Wagoner Community Hospital, Wagoner physicians and Wagoner city officials were not asked to participate in the Urgent Care Clinic's planning and development,” Leopard said. “The clinic developers announced the building of the clinic in Wagoner a week before the planned groundbreaking.

“The developers chose to establish a clinic in Wagoner without our involvement. Had we been asked at the beginning of the project to participate in its development, we would have been eager to do so; however, since we were not, we will continue with our plans to provide a hospital-sponsored urgent care clinic.”

Leopard said the hospital will welcome the clinic and offer it “the opportunity to use our hospital and physicians for inpatient and outpatient services.”

Childers said if there is a patient that neither Urgent Care nor Wagoner Community Hospital can treat, they will send them to Tahlequah rather than have them make a trip to Tulsa.

“Dr. (Tracey) Childers and I have been here in Tahlequah for 10 years and have been nothing but behind to the community hospital,” he said. “We’ll have the same approach in Wagoner.”

Even doctors need to take time off or go out of town once in a while, Childers said. Their service niche also reduces the load for hospital emergency room staff.

“We took all the true non-emergent patients off their hands so the emergency rooms can treat real emergencies,” he said. “We treat these folks in a timely fashion at doctor’s office costs. That’s three to six times less than the cost of an emergency room.”

The clinic will accept payment from both Medicare and insurance, Childers said.

“If they have Medicaid and they have an unassigned provider they can come right in,” he said. “If they have an assigned provider, then we must have a physician referral.”

Meredith Zehr, executive director of the Wagoner Area Chamber of Commerce, said growth in the health care sector can have long-term positive results for the community.

“We’re hoping it will create a ripple effect,” she said. “If it attracts more physicians, then there will be less patients who have to go to Tulsa or Muskogee.”

Tahlequah City Hospital CEO Brian Woodliff said health care providers in small towns need to collaborate. Having two health care facilities in Wagoner will help attract physicians, he said.

Rhonda Serrano, office manager for Childers Medical Group, said Urgent Care will have five to six exam rooms, a procedure room and a lab.

“It will be a walk-in clinic,” she said. “We’ll handle common colds, women’s needs, scrapes and bruises, headaches, allergies, fevers, stomach problems, stitches and minor emergencies.”

Childers said the tentative hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Serrano said they are recruiting nurse practitioners and physician assistants to staff the facility.

“We also do a lot of workers comp and employment drug screening,” she said. “That’s good for all the businesses in the growing community.”

City Editor Liz McMahan contributed to this report.