The clinic was previously located further south, on West McCreight Avenue.
“Being closer to other offices and then also close to the standalone emergency department might help in terms of seeing people that might not necessarily need to go to the ER to kind of decrease some of that emergency department burden,” physician assistant John Sanford said.
Sanford said the walk-in clinic operates like an urgent care, although it cannot be called one as it doesn’t have on-site x-ray machines. He said the clinic can see anyone who would otherwise go to an urgent care, like people with upper respiratory infection symptoms.
“The reason why the emergency department exists is essentially to make sure you don’t die and to see if you need to be admitted to the hospital, so if you’re not having a life-or-death situation, it’s reasonable to at least go to the walk-in clinic or the urgent care and we can obviously triage things and see what we deem appropriate for it,” Sanford said.
The clinic can order labs, x-rays and other screening to be done at the imaging center in Springfield, Sanford said.
The walk-in clinic can be a first stop in non-life threatening situations, because insurance providers charge it like a primary care visit, which is a lot more affordable than the ER or an urgent care.
Sanford said providers at the clinic will get EMS there or direct patients to go to the ER if they determine the situation is emergent. Insurances charge a copay typically around $25-$30 for the clinic.
The clinic can test for the flu, COVID-19, strep throat, as well as send out different tests for cultures, Sanford said. It can also perform minimally invasive care like lancing abscesses.
Sanford said the clinic is always open for walk-in visits but encouraged people to call ahead to make appointments and reduce their wait time. The clinic is currently open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It also has a location in Urbana.
Providers at the clinic are seeing an increase in flu during a particularly bad flu season.
“This year in particular has been really bad for the flu pretty much everywhere, especially in the Springfield community; the numbers have been the highest it’s been in several years for the flu,” Sanford said. “The past two or three weeks it has been trending down so it might be past the peak of the flu.”
Sanford encouraged people experiencing flu-like symptoms or who had a known exposure to the virus to address that immediately.
“The sooner you get in the better, because if you are positive for that, we can treat you with the antiviral medication and that usually works best if it’s started early on in the course of the illness,” Sanford said.
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