UF Health starts construction on three hybrid emergency rooms, urgent care centers

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — UF Health Jacksonville and Intuitive Health marked a major milestone in their initiative to bring a unique style of emergency care to Jacksonville, celebrating the construction progress of three hybrid emergency room and urgent care centers.

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UF Health Jacksonville announced the first patient will be seen in October at the new facility on New Kings Rd.

The two other centers are on Lane Ave., which will see its first patient in November, and off Baymeadows Rd., which will open in December.

The project is being developed in partnership with Dallas-based Intuitive Health. Jacksonville is the third location in the state that will host the hybrid model.

Intuitive Health has similarly affiliated facilities in the southeastern and northwestern parts of the state, but the UF Health centers will be the first in the northeast area of Florida.

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“We are thrilled at the progress of these three centers that will change the delivery of health care in the community,” said Russ Armistead, CEO of UF Health Jacksonville. “We believe this new hybrid concept will bring not only high-quality care, but will also keep costs down by offering two options of care under one roof.”

The centers will have a full-service ER open 24 hours a day, and an urgent care center open in the same building seven days a week. Each facility will be equipped with on-site lab equipment and a radiology suite with X-ray and multi-slice CT scanners. It will also be staffed with board-certified, ER-licensed physicians.

An ER physician will examine each patient when they arrive and determine the appropriate level of care.

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“Our emergency physicians and health care teams are excited to see the progress of these new centers, which will give us the opportunity to serve even more residents across Jacksonville and Northeast Florida,” said Andy Godwin, chair of the department of emergency medicine for the UF Jacksonville branch. “These are going to be state-of-the-art facilities that will help take the guesswork out for patients on whether to go to an emergency room or urgent care center, so they can spend time getting the critical care they need.”

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A key feature of the hybrid concept is a commitment to billing transparency, with no surprise bills. Patients will only pay for the level of care they receive, and estimates say more than 70% of patients can be treated at the urgent care level.

The facilities will also accept most insurance plans, along with Medicare and Medicaid.

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