Midwest Total Urgent Care now open, ready to serve

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The next time families face a minor health situation, a new urgent care facility may be an option.
“We do walk in and scheduled appointments,” said Gavin Flentge, a licensed nurse practitioner of Midwest Total Urgent Care. “If patients want to come in for anything from coughs, colds and runny noses to sutures to shortness of breath that’s not severe, we can take of the less serious stuff that people have been going to the ER for.”
Procedures such as putting stitches in, taking stitches out, assisting with dehydration are IV fluids all areas in which they can serve visitors.
The urgent care center opened July 26. Individuals can be seen seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,
“The ER is the alternative and it has been the alternative for a while,” he said. “The ER is the place to go in some instances. The big difference you’ll see between us and the ER really is cost.”
Flengte doesn’t want to discourage individuals from a trip to the emergency room, if a specific situation calls for that. Midwest Total Urgent Care provides a local option that may not come with the similar costs of an ER visit.
(“We’re) considerably cheaper than going to the ER, for the things that are appropriate, obviously,” he said. “Heart attacks and strokes we don’t do here.”
For those being seen at Midwest, co-pay allotments are the same as office co-pays
“We do have processes in place that should (help),” Flengte said. “Heart attacks and strokes don’t always present us with the same symptoms we all think of.”
Prior to the opening in Perryville, at 8 French Lane, the closest urgent care facilities were in Festus and Cape Girardeau
“Our service area is Perryville, Perry County, southern Ste. Genevieve (County), northern Cape (Girardeau) County, Patton, Fredericktown, Marble Hill,” Flentge said.

He began his career as an emergency room nurse three plus years. He also spent time as an ICU nurse for six years, flight nurse for eight years
“All of my background is in acute care,” he said. “Things that come up that need to be taken care of sooner as opposed to faintly practiced type of medicine.”
Flengte serves as an acute care family practitioner. The two other individuals on staff are family nurse practitioners
“They can see everything from managing high blood pressure to taking care of the acute stuff with stitches, coughs, colds, runny rose, things like that.”
While the facility is open now, Flentge pointed out an expansion is in the works.
“We’re hoping in the next roughly month to six weeks, we should have our addition done which should have an x-ray suite and four additional exam rooms. In time, we’ll be able to do more with injuries.”
Flenge is optimistic this phase can be completed in the next month to six weeks.
“We’re pretty excited,” Flentge said. “It’s kind of a thing we saw a need for in the community. This is the service we felt was most needed, urgent care type of stuff.”
Walk-in or a scheduled appointment, Flentge said either option is fine.
“Whatever is convenient for the patient,” he said. “Most of our patients walk in.”
“What I hope we can prove is that maybe patients won’t have to go to the ER, since they have another option and then patients can be seen for things maybe a little bit quicker so they can get better access to care, things they would normally put off because it’s hard to get in to their family doctor which is reasonable because everyone needs a family doctor. For the more acute things they are maybe putting off and thinking about until something happens again, now they have a place when something happens that we can get them taken care of at least get them on the right path.”