Health care company to host Pahrump grand opening

A Southern Nevada-based health care company that has amassed some five primary care clinics in the Las Vegas Valley, with more on the way, has pushed its reach to the Pahrump area.

Physician-led P3 Health Partners, which carries the majority of its footprint in the Las Vegas Valley, will see its first, overall sixth, clinic open in the Pahrump area on Monday. The Pahrump clinic, under the organization’s P3 Medical Group, as are the other locations, will be host to a grand opening celebration to kick things off at its at 360 S. Lola Lane, Building B, adjacent to Desert View Hospital’s emergency room entrance, on the hospital campus.

That event will run from 9-11 a.m. on Tuesday at the new clinic and will feature remarks from Dr. Edward Harding, who will be the lead provider at P3 Medical Group’s Pahrump location after it opens, along with community and other company leaders.

The clinic will open to patients starting Monday, which is booked solid, as are slots through part of November, Harding said during an interview with a Pahrump Valley Times reporter during an interview at the new space prior to its opening.

Harding was joined by Dr. Tracy J. Wakefield, president of the P3 Nevada Medical Group, during that meeting and talked about the group’s focus on what’s known as population health management.

“Whatever population we take care of, we like to take care of the whole picture of all the parts of their care,” Wakefield said.

Under this care model, all of a patient’s care would be coordinated through the clinic’s medical team. Things such as specialists’ reports and test results would come to Harding and his team, for example, so they could better coordinate the care of a patient, a spokeswoman for the group explained.

“We’ve been lucky to get some great providers who we think kind of share the values that we have, which is really giving patients the care they deserve and kind of returning the importance around the physician and the patient relationship, rather than like corporate medicine,” Wakefield said.

During a tour of the Pahrump clinic, supplies and equipment were being organized to prepare for the new flow of patients.

Overall, the space contains 11 exam rooms, which Harding said is plenty of space for him, and there is also room for more providers, he said. Some things such as blood testing will be done on site, but X-rays and other scans will be sourced out to Desert Radiology.

Reno-based Hometown Health, a not-for-profit health insurance company, is the insurance arm of Renown Health. The group partnered with P3 Health Partners earlier this year on its Medicare Advantage plan, Senior Care Plus, for 2019, which it will offer in Clark and Nye counties for the first time.

Hometown, a nonprofit health insurance provider, currently serves over 160,000 members in five counties in Northern Nevada and Carson City. Its Senior Care Plus plan will go into effect Jan. 1, 2019.

Medicare open enrollment started on Oct. 15 and ends on Dec. 7.

C.J. Bawden, sales and marketing manager for Hometown Health, said in an email that he would be happy to see 1,500 members sign up for Hometown’s Senior Care Plus plan for 2019 in Nye County. The county contains 14,000 Medicare beneficiaries, with roughly half of those enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, he added.

When the Pahrump clinic opens its doors on Monday, it will have a staff of about five: two medical assistants, one person at the front desk and an office manager. The clinic is also working with two affiliate providers.

The clinic accepts a variety of insurance plans.

P3 Health Partners launched its first four clinics in Clark County in May with more coming online in August. Now, in addition to the Pahrump location, the group is working to bring two more locations in Henderson/Green Valley and one near Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas.

Wakefield said one of the big catalysts to the Pahrump expansion was to give people in the area more options for care.

“One, we wanted to give people a choice in kind of the health care options out here in Pahrump, rather than being limited to the providers that currently exist, so we wanted to really elevate the level of care here in Pahrump as well,” she said.

Contact reporter Jeffrey Meehan at jmeehan@pvtimes.com