Midway Medical Clinic is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and is located at 111 Brooklyn Road in Holly Pond. Appointments can be made by calling the clinic at 256-796-3084. / Heather Mann
HOLLY POND – Midway Medical Clinic is a rural health clinic that originally opened in Holly Pond in the spring of 2013. Two doctor partners (an internal medicine and geriatric specialist from Huntsville and an internal medicine/family specialist from Scottsboro) own this clinic, along with Southview Medical Clinic in Hanceville. The clinics have been operated since 2013 by a combination of local doctors and nurse practitioners. Due to some health issues with one of the providers at Midway and personnel changes at the Hanceville clinic, the decision was made to temporarily close the Midway clinic in March 2017 and move all personnel resources to Hanceville (which is the busier clinic by far and needed additional help). After Midway closed, the owners contacted Susan Stapp, the nurse practitioner who had opened Midway in 2013 and left the business in 2014, to come back and operate the clinic.
"I said yes, I would love to come back to Holly Pond and have the chance to operate the clinic. By this time, I realized I should have stayed in my hometown from the beginning. I had missed my patients and wanted to come back home to take care of people I had come to know and care for in my own community," Stapp recalled. With the help of an office assistant, she reopened the clinic on May 8, 2017. Currently, Stapp and the assistant are the only staff members, but they anticipate adding on more personnel when business picks up again.
Stapp is a family nurse practitioner who graduated from the UAB School of Nursing with a master’s degree in nursing, specializing in family care. She is certified in basic life support, advanced cardiac life support and pediatric advanced life support, is a certified medical examiner for DOT physicals, and is experienced with Social Security disability and worker’s compensation exams. Her assistant, while not certified, was trained by Stapp in giving injections and drawing blood, and Stapp described her as "the amazing lady who answers calls and greets you when you come in with a warm and helpful attitude."
The clinic treats patients of all ages, from infant to elderly, and offers chronic disease management (but not chronic pain; patients needing long-term pain medication will be referred to the pain clinic of their choice). Walk-in patients for acute care can be treated for fever, cold and flu, sinus pain, sore throat, UTIs, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, simple drainage of abscess, minor suturing, allergies, strains/sprains, rashes, cuts or scrapes and other minor emergencies.
Other services include PAP tests, contraceptive management, sports physicals, employment physicals, DOT physicals and non-narcotic weight management, though appointments are necessary for these. Patients with chest pain or other emergency problems will advised to go to the ER of their choice, or if they are too unstable, Midway will care for them using basic life support techniques until they are taken to an ER by ambulance.
Midway also has a network of specialists, lab companies, and hospitalists to help patients that the clinic may not have the resources to treat. They have an on-site lab drawing service in which the specimens are sent to Labcorp, Quest or Diatherix lab companies, depending on the patient's insurance coverage and the needed specimen results, and the results often come back within a few days. They don't have on-site x-ray or radiology services, but they do write orders to take to Cullman Regional outpatient services to have the x-ray, ultrasound, MRI, CT, mammogram, or other tests performed there. The tests results are read by a radiology specialty doctor from Cullman Regional and the typed results are faxed back to the clinic, often within the same day.
The clinic's relationship with Cullman Regional’s hospitalist team means that if one of Midway's patients needs to be hospitalized, they can speak directly to a physician or nurse practitioner on Cullman Regional’s team and try to have them admit the patient to a room directly without the patient having to go through the ER. The hospitalist then takes over care of the patient while they are in the hospital setting and Midway will see the patient for a follow-up when they are discharged home. Stapp and her associates also have a network of specialists for people who need treatment in cardiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, dermatology, urology, nephrology, orthopedic and spinal problems, minor surgical procedures, wound care and pain management.
When asked about how the clinic helps low-income families or people without insurance, Stapp replied, "We accept the following payment methods: Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance is accepted. If no insurance, we offer reasonable private pay fees for visits, injections and some labs. We can also order tests and refer the private-pay patients to specialists as needed, but they will have to make their own payment arrangements for the tests or the specialty doctor. In addition, we have referred non-insured patients to UAB charity care, in which the patient can sometimes get care through UAB hospital and specialty doctors after going through a process with UAB to see if they qualify for charity care. In addition, for both the insured and non-insured we will try to prescribe medications that are appropriate for their condition(s) and that are also covered by their insurance. Further, if you don’t have insurance or if you have poor prescription coverage, we will work to help you find a cost-effective medication that is also suitable for your illness."
Midway Medical Clinic is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and is located at 111 Brooklyn Road in Holly Pond. Appointments can be made by calling the clinic at 256-796-3084.
Stapp said, "At this time, we are a small, two-person operation, but we will be adding additional personnel as the business grows. There may be a little wait, but I can promise the patient will receive comprehensive, friendly and caring service when they are seen by me."
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