The UTRGV School of Medicine will open two new employee health centers today on the Edinburg and Harlingen campuses to provide medical care to University of Texas System employees, their families and retirees.
In addition, UTRGV joined the UT Health Network plan, which will offer more affordable health services for its members.
“The UT Health Network is an enhanced plan design for UT SELECT participants receiving services from certain UT physicians at certain UT System Health Institutions,” according to the utsystem.edu website.
Examples of benefits of the UT Health Network plan are a $10 co-pay when visiting a participating employee or nursing clinic or a co-pay of $20 or $25 for an office visit with a UT provider.
In an interview with The Rider, John H. Krouse, dean of the UTRGV School of Medicine, said the medical school decided to join the UT Health Network because of the growth it has experienced since its creation.
“It is something we decided this year,” Krouse said. “Our practice has grown significantly, so we now have a number of physicians not only in primary care, but also in a variety of specialty services. Our practice at UTRGV, our medical practice, has grown enough that we made the choice that we would participate. We are now capable of offering that level of care to the community here.”
In Edinburg, the UT Health Rio Grande Valley Employee Health Clinic is in the Research Education Building (EREBL), located at 1214 W. Schunior St. On the Harlingen campus, the clinic is at 2106 Treasure Hills Blvd. (off the Coastal Bend VA entrance). Both clinics are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
A clinic in Brownsville is expected to open during the spring semester.
Both clinics will offer flu shots during the first few days and will only provide general medical care during the first months.
“At first, certainly, the employee health clinics will be primary care, meaning family, internal medicine,” Krouse said. “We will be having some behavioral health or mental health services beginning over the next month. So, both of those sites will be general medical care.”
Krouse said more services will be offered in the future.
“We will be having specialty sites where we have a variety of specialists that will be opening over the next few months and those are going to provide a wider range of care, rather than just primary care services,” he said.
Employees who are under the BlueCross BlueShield of Texas network, including their families, will be able to get services from the new clinics.
“Anyone who is insured under the University of Texas BlueCross BlueShield network, their families, they are participants already,” Krouse said. “There is no additional requirements and they are able to come to our employee health sites … or they can take care at any of the outpatient clinics that are present from Starr County all the way to Laguna Vista.”
Asked how many jobs the health centers will create, he replied, “We hired nurse practitioners and physician assistants who will be providing care and we have hired clinical and clerical staff. … All of our activities that we have done through the UT Health and the School of Medicine. We have created now 350 new jobs through the university since the founding of the School of Medicine.”
The clinics will offer services during daytime on a walk-in basis or by appointment.
Marvin Lovett, a UTRGV professor in the Marketing Department, told The Rider it is always good when there is more access to health services.
“Especially preventative medicine, which ends up being the best medicine of all,” Lovett said. “I look at [this] positively. I think it would just be a more convenient option for health care. I know it’s probably not going to be for, you know, major concerns, but just a place to go conveniently for just small problems or again, preventative health measures, would also be great.”
He said these clinics create opportunities for medical students.
“This will probably also give our medical students … a chance to actually get some experience,” he said. “I think that is a great thing, too. It is a win-win situation.”
Lovett said he would like to visit the clinics to get a flu shot.
Similarly, Christopher Albert, director of the UTRGV Counseling Center, said the clinics will provide greater access to health care.
“I think it is a really good thing,” Albert said. “Every time you increase access, you improve health care. Students need to stay healthy, and staff and faculty as well.”
He said the clinics show that UTRGV is investing in the community and in its faculty and staff.
UT Health RGV Employee Health Clinics will function as any other regular medical site. The revenue generated by the clinics will be used to support the UTRGV School of Medicine and UT Health RGV.
Another medical site will open in February on Jackson Road in Edinburg.
“[It] is going to have surgical specialties … dermatology, plastic surgery, ear, nose and throat care,” Krouse said. “We will be opening there a vision center so people will be able to come to have their vision tested or their eyes examined and they will be able to purchase glasses at that site on Jackson Road in Edinburg.”
He hopes the Employee Health Clinics help improve the health of UTRGV employees.
“I think that employees will be able to not have to travel for care,” Krouse said. “If they are feeling ill, they can walk right over, come on campus and be seen. They will not have to drive anywhere else. I think that should improve the quality of life of the faculty and staff.”
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