Nurse Brings Health Care Home With MobileMed
By Reinhardt, Eric
SYRACUSE – MobileMed, a local medical house-call practice providing care for adults 18 and over, treated its first patient on Sept. 15, 2007.
Almost 12 months later, the business now treats 55 patients, in addition to patient referrals it receives from other family physicians or internal-medicine doctors in the Syracuse area, says Desta Anthony, a nurse practitioner and owner of MobileMed.
“I wanted the flexibility of being able to manage my own schedule more than any private office could offer me so that was the motivating factor for starting it,” says Anthony.
Plus, the appeal of setting up a practice that wasn’t being offered in the area was also an attraction, she adds.
MobileMed has two objectives. One is providing primary-care services similar to those that patients would receive from their family physician. Secondly, MobileMed will also treat people with injuries or illnesses that – an urgent-care center might normally treat, conditions that require immediate care but aren’t serious enough to warrant a visit to the emergency room.
Anthony says those patients may also have a primary-care physician, but maybe they’re too sick to get out of bed, have work obligations they can’t leave, or may be visiting from out of town and just can’t get to an urgent-care facility.
“Then we facilitate that urgent care wherever they are,” she says.
As a nurse practitioner, Anthony can assess, diagnose, and treat a medical problem, including writing prescriptions. MobileMed’s services include blood work, immunizations, certain. types of X- rays, and spirometry, a test measuring lung function.
“Spending an hour with a new patient in their home with their family is completely different than seeing them in an office setting for the first time for 15 to 20 minutes,” says Anthony.
She says seeing potential safety issues in a patient’s home and how a patient moves around in his or her home sometimes makes it easier to diagnose and treat ailments.
MobileMed operates from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week, says Anthony.
MobileMed makes regular visits to senior living centers in the Syracuse area, including Sedgwick Heights at 1100 James St., part of the Syracuse based Loretto network of agencies providing elder care services.
Anthony says 65 area doctors have patients at Sedgwick Heights, and she’s treated patients under the care of 57 of those physicians.
In addition to its work with older adults, MobileMed also conducts flu-clinics and blood pressure checks for employees of small businesses.
Anthony notes that part of being a nurse practitioner is an emphasis on educating the patient, so she believes she spends more time with patients than other medical practices. MobileMed has a year-round wellness program it provides for employees, and it will also facilitate one-time wellness events for businesses as well.
And MobileMed is working to create additional relationships with area businesses.
“We have several industries right now that we’re in talks with in. terms of doing more pre-employment physical exams or follow-up for [workers] comp cases,” says Anthony.
Anthony says MobileMed currently provides pre-employment physicals, for five home health agencies, including the local franchise of Dayton, Ohio-based Comfort Keepers and some assisted- living facilities, including the Bellevue Manor Assisted Living Community at 4330 Onondaga Blvd. in Syracuse.
At MobileMed, Anthony employs an administrative assistant and a person responsible for medical billing. Both work part-time from their own homes. Anthony also has plans to hire a part-time psychiatric nurse practitioner and a part time nurse practitioner in the next six months, she says.
Because it’s a mobile business, MobileMed doesn’t have a central office. Anthony wasn’t able to provide an annual revenue figure for her first year in business, but did say she bills Medicaid an average of $750 daily.
Anthony points out she only bills Medicare and Medicaid and doesn’t work with any health-insurance plans.
“We’re a fee-for-service operation,” she says, noting that her cash fee is in the same range as a health insurance co-pay for an urgent-care visit – between $50 and $75.
Among her patients is a mother of three who would normally pay a $25 co-pay for a doctor’s office visit, but Anthony charges her $35, noting the extra $10 is for the convenience of having the visit take place in the patient’s own home.
MobileMed will either accept cash or bill its patients for services rendered. No credit cards are accepted.
The high price of gasoline has also been a concern, says Anthony. When the business first began, she could fill up her car’s tank for $50 and it would last an entire week. Now, it costs her over $70 for a full tank of gas, and as the number of patients she sees has increased, Anthony has tried to set up several appointments in the same areas to save on fuel costs.
Anthony grew up in North Bay, Ontario – three hours north of Toronto. Since arriving in Syracuse in 1994, she’s worked as a registered nurse at CNY Internists in DeWitt, St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center, and University Hospital. Anthony earned her master’s degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University in 2001.
She began considering the pursuit of a mobile practice in January 2007 and established the business five months later. Anthony spent the following months coordinating care with assisted-living facilities and potential patients before she began treatments in September 2007.
Anthony believes the families she works with are grateful for the convenience of in-home care, especially when people don’t have to- leave work to take a patent or grandparent into an office setting.
“I love the fact that it’s a unique practice,” she says.
Loretto has invited Anthony to conduct a presentation on initiating a house-call practice at a symposium scheduled for Nov. 12 and 13.
Copyright Central New York Business Journal Aug 29, 2008
(c) 2008 Business Journal – Central New York, The. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.