Deaconess combines emergency, urgent care at new Evansville facility

A new Deaconess facility on Evansville’s East Side is designed to address a familiar health care dilemma: When you’re sick or injured, how do you know whether you need the emergency room or urgent care?

Deaconess Health System cut the ribbon Sept. 22 on a new combined emergency room and urgent care facility at 5001 Healthy Way, near Lynch and North Green River roads. Deaconess says it is the first facility of its kind in the Tri-State.

The 19,000-square-foot facility will operate around the clock and include an ambulance bay, laboratory and radiology services, including X-ray, ultrasound and a 64-slice CT scanner.

An opening date for patients had not been announced as of publication.

What does the combined model mean for patients?

Instead of requiring patients to decide whether their illness or injury warrants emergency or urgent care, Deaconess says every patient will be evaluated by emergency physicians and staff after arriving. The patient will then receive the appropriate level of care and be billed based on the services needed.

That distinction can matter financially.

Guidance provided by the State of Indiana to employees enrolled in its health plans illustrates the potential difference in cost. The state’s comparison of care options estimates a typical urgent-care visit at $147 compared with $1,636 for an emergency-room visit, although actual prices vary by location, insurance coverage and services provided.

National research also suggests a portion of ER visits can be handled in less-intensive settings. A RAND-led study published in Health Affairs estimated that roughly 14% to 27% of emergency-department visits could potentially be treated at urgent-care centers or retail clinics. Those visits commonly involved minor illnesses, strains and some fractures.

But deciding where to go isn’t always simple.

Other research has found that patients initially classified as having nonurgent conditions can still require diagnostic testing or treatment, and a small percentage are ultimately hospitalized. That makes it difficult for patients to always know the appropriate level of care before they are evaluated.

The combined model is intended to remove some of that guesswork.

“We hear it all the time: someone gets hurt or their child spikes a fever late at night, and their only option feels like the ER, even when the ER isn’t really what they need,” Dr. Matthew Gilbert, Deaconess medical director of emergency services, said in the announcement.

Deaconess is partnering with Intuitive Health, a Dallas-based company that developed the combined emergency and urgent-care model.

The facility is part of a larger three-story, roughly 60,000-square-foot development that will eventually include medical offices, imaging and an outpatient laboratory. The existing Deaconess Clinic Lynch next door will continue operating as a primary-care clinic.