April Kubinski and Amy Vertin know firsthand that visiting the emergency room or urgent-care center can leave someone’s stomach in knots. Urgency often replaces bedside manner and, because of this, the two founded Emediate Cure Quick Care six years ago, currently operating two locations in Shorewood and Joliet, Illinois. Both Kubinski and Vertin worked in emergency rooms for years before starting their own clinic, and Emediate Cure was born out of the frustrations they had experienced in the hospital setting. In the present hyper-aware COVID-19 times, when patients need the convenience and speed that telehealth offers paired with the in-person compassion of a visit to the family health provider, Emediate Cure has been an invaluable resource to provide fast, reliable and affordable healthcare services.
“We felt that our community was lacking the convenience and high-quality care combination. We felt the need to get back into our community and accommodate local needs,” said Kubinski. “I feel that you can’t really examine a patient via telephone; oftentimes a patient comes in and tells us they have had a cough and lists certain symptoms, so we listen to their lungs and evaluate. From those evaluations, an occasional patient might have a right lower lobe pneumonia that we can hear. If a patient is being diagnosed over the telephone, there’s no way to examine them and it simultaneously removes an important aspect of the provider-patient relationship that is so essential for an accurate diagnosis.”
Vertin noted that there are some instances where telehealth is an useful option, such as medicine refills with an established physician or for mental health needs.
“When someone is already anxious and stressed, the last thing they want to do is leave the house and sit in a waiting room near a crowd,” said Vertin. “So, there is a very appropriate place for telehealth — just not for new symptoms and acute health needs.”
Emediate Cure Offered Vital Services Telehealth Couldn’t at the Pandemic’s Worst
While doctor’s offices across the country closed during the pandemic, Emediate Cure kept the doors open at both locations to ensure people could walk in and easily access the type of testing and care they needed, with minimal waits and affordable rates, regardless of whether or not they have insurance.
Vertin noted that when the pandemic was at its height, the two knew they “went into health care for a reason” and had a community to take care of.
“We stepped in when people needed healthcare more than any other time in their lives,” said Vertin. “We became nurses and practitioners to take care of people and use our diagnostic skills — not run and hide during one of the most critical moments in our lifetime.”
In-Person Care Digs Deeper Than Telehealth Can Provide
Sticking your tongue out on camera will hardly allow a physician to see if a patient has strep, symptoms from allergies or COVID-19. It’s a guessing game at best, but countless patients do this every day in an effort to diagnose a range of symptoms related to COVID-19 and other underlying illnesses.
Kubinski warned against leaning on the convenience of telehealth for larger healthcare needs, offering a poignant example of how telehealth failed to serve her late father’s health care needs.
“Last March, my father was not feeling well and had swollen glands,” she explained. “For about a month and a half, he called this doctor over telehealth. He was told he had a virus, but time went on, and he still didn’t get better. During his next telehealth call, his doctor told him that it’s likely COVID-19 and advised him to quarantine. At the time, it was a 21-day result. Thirty days went by and he still didn’t feel well. His glands were still swollen, and the right lymph node on his neck was huge. We finally sent him for an ultrasound and he was diagnosed with cancer.”
Both Kubinski and Vertin warned that, sadly, situations like this happen everyday and deadly symptoms can easily be missed due to the current reliance on telehealth.
Emediate Cure Puts People First with Personalized, Affordable Care
Kubinski and Vertin founded Emediate Cure in an effort to do what they felt their previous employers could not: put people first. Emediate Cure’s staff of board-certified health professionals are focused on providing high-quality and personalized care to each patient, taking the time to educate them on their individual condition and treatment plan.
With Emediate Cure, Kubinski and Vertin aimed to bring back the type of family health care practice they experienced as children, when patients and providers knew each other outside of office walls and participated in the same communities.
True to its mission of providing affordable, community-focused health care for everyone and building relationships and trust with patients, Emediate Cure prioritizes people first, something that is often missed in telehealth.
Vertin stressed the convenience of their clinics and the steps that they take to ensure that they can treat as many walk-in patients as possible by offering extended hours (the Joliet location is open until 7:00 p.m. and Shorewood is open until 9:00 p.m.), quick check in, and release times of 30-45 minutes on average while also accepting a wide range of insurance policies.
“90% of the time, we are taking walk-ins, so patients don’t have to reserve their spot,” stated Vertin. “We want the experience to be convenient, and we’re open every day of the year except for Christmas. We really do our best to keep our patients out of the emergency room. When other doctor’s offices are closed or have no availability, we feel like we bring peace to our community where everyone knows that they can rely on Emediate Cure as an option.”
The estimated initial investment to purchase an Emediate Cure Quick Care franchise ranges from $370,000 to $581,800, including a $35,000 franchise fee.
About Emediate Cure
Since 2015, Emediate Cure Quick Care has offered a more personal alternative to corporate-owned practices with its two clinics in the Joliet and Shorewood suburbs of Chicago. By focusing on community and family (both locations are locally and family owned), Emediate Cure has become a go-to healthcare resource for patients experiencing non-life-threatening illnesses in the area. For more information, visit https://www.emediatecure.com/.
