EZ Care in Paris, Illinois

When in need of a physician's care on the weekend, many rush to the emergency room, even though they know it is not an emergency. But in today's Healthy Living, we’ll tell you about EZ Care in Paris, Illinois...a weekend clinic that can not only cure your ills, but also relieve the pain in your wallet.

Nurse Practitioner Shelly Roark has this to say about EZ Care. “We developed EZ Care approximately a year ago when we opened. About six months prior to that a committee got together from a lot of our department heads...marketing, and business, and clinicians like myself and developed a plan for a clinic we could have on the weekends here at the Paris Community Hospital that would allow us to see patients who didn't have access to health care Monday through Friday. They were too busy, they were at work, they didn't get sick until Friday night. Also our goal and mission was to keep patients out of the emergency room. Things like sore throats and ear aches and rashes and coughs and sinus infections and school physicals...really aren't something that needs to be seen in an emergency room. So it was helping to allow the physicians in the emergency room to see the emergent patients, the more serious patients. It decreased wait times where in the past we didn't have the clinic and you had to sit and wait in the emergency room. You’re able to come here on the weekends and sign in just like you would during the week and we can get you in and get you out and you can enjoy your weekend or feel better by Monday morning.”

Dr. Reid Sutton explains, “Our EZ Care clinic is staffed by family nurse practitioners. And if they have any question, they can call the physician on call for the Family Medical Center clinic. If someone is really more ill than the EZ Care clinic is designed to handle, our patients are just taken over to the emergency room.”

Roark says “In addition to decreasing your wait times in the emergency room, it also decreases the cost to your insurance company and possibly to yourself, as emergency room billing is much higher than what it would be to be seen in EZ Care. So it is affordable. We will bill your insurance. We accept most major insurance companies. Or you can pay for your visit when you are here. And definitely it will be a savings to you in the end."