Urgent Care of Fairhope Adds Primary Care, Hires Nurse Practitioner Samantha Simmons to Lead It

FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Urgent Care of Fairhope is expanding beyond walk-in visits. The locally owned clinic has hired Samantha Simmons, a nurse practitioner and Baldwin County native, to lead a new primary care service that will give patients a place for ongoing, routine medical care in addition to treatment for sudden illnesses and injuries.

Simmons will begin seeing primary care patients on Monday, Nov. 2. Her primary care schedule will run Monday through Thursday, and the service will cover annual wellness visits, preventive care, management of chronic conditions and more.

Who is Samantha Simmons?

Simmons grew up in Baldwin County and has been caring for patients since 2012. She earned her undergraduate degree at Auburn University and completed her nurse practitioner program at the University of South Alabama in Mobile.

Her experience covers three areas of practice:

• Urgent care, treating illnesses and injuries that need prompt attention but are not emergencies
• Occupational and industrial medicine, the branch of care focused on workers’ health, which typically includes treating on-the-job injuries and providing work-related exams and screenings
• Primary care, the ongoing, relationship-based care that covers prevention, checkups and long-term health conditions

That mix of experience is well suited to a clinic that will now offer both walk-in urgent care and scheduled primary care under one roof.

What the new primary care service will offer

Starting Nov. 2, patients can see Simmons for:

• Annual wellness visits, yearly appointments to review a patient’s overall health, update medical history and plan screenings
• Preventive care, which generally includes screenings, immunizations and counseling designed to catch problems early or prevent them altogether
• Chronic condition management, ongoing care for long-term conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and asthma, which often require regular follow-up, medication adjustments and lab work
• Other routine primary care needs

Patients interested in establishing primary care, including questions about scheduling and insurance coverage, should contact the clinic directly.

Urgent care and primary care: what’s the difference?

Although the two are often confused, urgent care and primary care serve different purposes.

Urgent care clinics are built for convenience and speed. They treat conditions that need attention the same day but are not life-threatening, such as minor cuts, sprains, sore throats, ear infections, flu symptoms and urinary tract infections. Patients usually walk in without an appointment and may see whichever provider is on duty.

Primary care is designed for continuity. A primary care provider gets to know a patient over time, keeps track of medical history, coordinates referrals to specialists and focuses on keeping the patient healthy, not just treating what is wrong that day. Health experts generally consider a regular source of primary care one of the most important factors in catching disease early and managing long-term conditions well.

For patients, having both services in the same clinic can mean fewer handoffs. Someone who first comes in for a sudden illness can be connected to ongoing care in the same place, and an established primary care patient who gets sick has a familiar clinic to turn to.

When to go to the emergency room instead

Neither urgent care nor primary care replaces emergency care. Chest pain, signs of a stroke such as facial drooping or sudden weakness on one side, severe difficulty breathing, major injuries and uncontrolled bleeding call for 911 or a hospital emergency department.

About annual wellness visits

The annual wellness visit is one of the core services of primary care. For people with Medicare, it is a specific yearly benefit: a visit to develop or update a personalized prevention plan based on the patient’s current health and risk factors. Medicare covers it once every 12 months, generally with no out-of-pocket cost when the provider accepts Medicare assignment. It is different from a full head-to-toe physical exam, and additional tests or services provided during the same visit may carry separate costs.

Many private insurance plans also cover a yearly preventive visit. Patients should check their plan’s details or ask the clinic before scheduling.

About nurse practitioners

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who have completed graduate-level education and clinical training, allowing them to diagnose and treat illnesses, order and interpret tests, and prescribe medications. They are a large and growing part of the primary care workforce in the United States, particularly in fast-growing and rural areas where demand for care often outpaces the supply of physicians.

In Alabama, nurse practitioners practice under a collaborative agreement with a physician, an arrangement overseen by the state’s nursing and medical licensing boards.

The University of South Alabama, where Simmons completed her nurse practitioner program, has one of the state’s major nursing schools and trains many of the advanced practice nurses who work along the Gulf Coast.

About Urgent Care of Fairhope

Urgent Care of Fairhope celebrated its grand opening with an Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting in August 2022. The clinic is in Magnolia Medical Park at 8096 Twin Beech Road, Suite 150, near Fairhope High School.

At its opening, the clinic described itself as a locally owned and operated, walk-in urgent care with an on-site lab, X-ray capabilities and IV hydration, offering treatment for conditions ranging from simple to more urgent but non-emergency problems so patients could avoid long waits in busy emergency departments. Dr. Cammy Beall, who is board certified in urgent care medicine and has practiced since 2000, was introduced with the clinic at that time.

The new primary care service marks the clinic’s next step in serving Fairhope and the Eastern Shore, one of the fastest-growing parts of Baldwin County, where population growth has steadily increased the demand for local health care options.

What’s next

Simmons begins seeing primary care patients Nov. 2, with appointments available Monday through Thursday. Urgent care services continue at the Twin Beech Road clinic. Residents looking for a primary care provider closer to home can contact Urgent Care of Fairhope to learn more about becoming a patient.