Western Medical Associates joins forces with Community Hospital

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - A primary care facility called Western Medical Associates announced this week that they have joined forces with Community Hospital.

Western Medical Associates is a small practice that has been around since the 1950s. They decided to partner with Community Hospital to better serve their patients and the community by becoming part of a larger organization.

“This town has always had lots of primary care clinics around the community,” said Community Hospital President and CEO Chris Thomas. “Over the years more and more have joined hospitals. We had Internal Medicine Associates join us and different specialty practices. Western Medical is a primary care clinic made up of an internist, family practice physicians, nurse practitioners, and all the supporting staff. But they’re one of the largest independent clinics in town and we’re proud they chose to join Community Hospital.”

Health officials say, having Western Medical Associates physicians and staff join Community Hospital will greatly better care. By giving patients at both facilities greater access to primary care so they don’t have to go to the hospital for internal medicine appointments.

“We want to have as many primary care doctors in the valley as possible,” said Thomas. “So this is another location for us. So this really fits our strategic initiative to have primary care providers in your neighborhood where you need to see them. We don’t want you to come to the hospital unless you need to come to the hospital.”

It also gives more resources to the clinic such as new computer systems and better communication with insurance.

“In the current environment the ability to join forces between two strong organizations gives us the ability to better serve our patients and better deal with the larger health care organizations such as insurance companies,” said Dr. Mark Twardowski.

Other than a change in the logo and graphics, officials say patients will not notice a change, and the name and location of both facilities will remain the same.

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