PHOTO | AALIYAH BOWDEN

CenterWell Senior Primary Care opened its first Charlotte location in the University area on Jan. 19. A clinic at Wilkinson Boulevard opens Jan. 26 and another facility at North Wendover Road opens later this year.

Three new Charlotte clinics aim to better serve senior citizens.

CenterWell Senior Primary Care, which provides underserved patients with personalized care, opened CenterWell University on Jan. 19.  CenterWell Wilkinson Boulevard is scheduled to open Jan. 26 and CenterWell North Wendover Road will open later this year.

“The city of Charlotte has been working to improve support, accessibility and engagement opportunities for senior citizens, and CenterWell Senior Primary Care centers are built to support those same initiatives,” said Tiffany Roberts, CenterWell’s North Carolina market president. “We focus on underserved communities and bring a new level of access to quality, coordinated care. With the Charlotte 65-plus community expected to grow by more than 100,000 in the next decade, we know the demand for quality care will only increase. I feel confident our centers will enhance the lives of Charlotte’s senior citizens.”

CenterWell University will serve about 2,000 patients with shorter wait times, no longer than 15 minutes spent in the waiting room, according to Roberts. The medical practice takes a holistic approach to caring for seniors with Medicare Advantage health plans and Original Medicare beneficiaries.

They look at other factors that are barriers to a person receiving healthcare, setting them apart from other providers. For instance, access to transportation, food insecurity, lack of health insurance, or housing needs. Patients will have access to clinical pharmacists and social workers, free of charge, who have been trained to treat the senior population.

Upon arrival in Charlotte, the company donated $20,000 to The Shepherd's Center for Charlotte, a nonprofit that provides support for the senior community to increase social interaction, expand access to resources, and to combat negative effects of isolation.

All new CenterWell locations in North Carolina will be staffed with board-certified physicians, nurses and behavioral health specialists. Each location also contains activity centers for local seniors.

“A lot of our senior citizens can't get in with a primary care doctor,” said Dr. Brian Walker, a physician at CenterWell University. “They have to wait three-four months to get in and that delays care and that leads to other problems too with depression. They're not feeling like they're being listened to and just not cared for. We want to make sure that we have short wait times. We want to make sure that we can get a patient in within 24 hours of them wanting to be seen.”

Walker added that his favorite part of his job is the people.

“I love talking to people,” he said.  “I love getting to know them. I love the fact that here at CenterWell, we can spend time with people that we don't have to rush.”
One major part of delivering care to underserved communities is having providers that reflect the patient population.

“I myself am from an underserved community,” said Jicie Congress, a family nurse practitioner at CenterWell University City. “So, I really appreciate being able to give back to an underserved community. That's what CenterWell is all about—being in places where patients are underserved because they are our most vulnerable patients. We need to give back and take care of them.”

The new CenterWell facilities in the Charlotte area aims to hire about 30 employees with all positions offering competitive salaries and benefits. Bilingual Spanish-speaking candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. The company is looking to fill the following positions as soon as possible:

• Primary care physicians

• Nurse practitioners

• Medical assistants

• RN care coaches

• Certified coders

• Front office medical record clerks

• Referral coordinators

• Training consultants  

On the Net:
CenterWellCareers.com

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