CAROLINA FOREST, S.C. (WBTW)- Beach Family and Urgent Care opened a new facility in the Carolina Forest area on Thursday afternoon.
Dr. Reynolds says Urgent Care has been one of the fastest growing segments of the health care market in the past few years. The growth has been driven by an insufficient number of primary care physicians in many parts of the country, as is the case in the Myrtle Beach area, the public’s demand for fast and efficient access to health care services and the fact the urgent care is a very cost-effective alternative in which to receive care.
“We’ve had actually more primary care physicians that have left the community recently or changed their style of practice which has increased that shortage even more,” Reynolds said.
An Avalere Health Study revealed South Carolina has 93 primary care physician shortage areas, with 26 percent of South Carolinians already living in an area without enough doctors.
“And there’s an issue as far as length of time it takes to get in to see a physician as opposed to an Emergency Room department where the wait times can be a lot longer and the expense quite a bit larger,” Reynolds said.
The Carolina Forest location is the fourth to open in the area. Both walk-in patients and permanent patients are accepted. Reynolds says many patients opt to make their urgent care physician their permanent primary care physician and that’s something they expect to see a lot of at the newest location.
“You know people who don’t have an established physician in the community, that’s one of the things we are here for and I think Carolina Forest may be a little more suited for than the other areas we have. We’re not going to have the tourist population we would have on the other side of the waterway.”
The new Beach family and Urgent Care is at 4010 River Oaks Drive. Offices are open from 8am to 8pm M – F, and 9am to 5pm on weekends.