Robbinsville – AdventHealth will enter into a 10-year contract to provide urgent- and primary-care services to Graham County.
Urgent care advocate Juanita Colvard made the announcement of the terms at March 19’s board of commissioners meeting, stating that she had hoped to have a contract for the panel to review that evening – but a few minor legal details were still being hammered out.
Colvard later told The Graham Star that AdventHealth has passed the contract to its corporate office. The Hendersonville branch of the company will be the operators in Graham County.
Additionally, she confirmed that the facility will be open from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
A sixth day will be established after 120 days of service.
The only lingering question is, when will the clinic re-open?
Colvard said there is a credentialing period AdventHealth must go through, largely in order to properly bill patients – an issue that has already cost the county in the past. The waiting period is 90-180 days, or 3-6 months.
Urgent care has been available in Graham County on an inconsistent basis since January 2023, when a lease with Smoky Mountain Urgent Care was terminated in the wake a court decision that the Bryson City-based clinic did not utilize imaging services or provide optimal hours of operation for residents. The county re-opened the facility with a skeleton crew of three employees Feb. 14, 2023, as Dr. David Booth entered into an agreement with the county to take over as the provider.
The newly-named Graham County Urgent Care & Family Practice seemed to flourish until August, when Booth abruptly began cutting recently-hired staff and then declared that the clinic would close Aug. 24 – which was a week earlier than originally believed. Booth told the Star that the closure was forced by “ongoing unexpected financial issues.”
Since then, Appalachian Mountain Community Health Center (formerly Tallulah Health Clinic) and the Graham County Health Department have been the only local options for medical care.
The building that housed urgent care on South Main Street is county-owned; Dr. Scott Bjerkness operates Smoky Mountain Chiropractic inside the front entrance of the building Mondays and Thursdays; the other half of the structure is dedicated to the county’s dental practice.
The urgent care partnership with AdventHealth was first announced Feb. 25.