Published: July 23, 2008 09:49 pm            

Pediatrics practice adds Somerset office

Most doctors stopped making house calls long ago.

Pediatric Care Specialists isn’t about to resurrect the practice of visiting patients in their homes, but they’re coming closer. The practice confirmed Wednesday that it plans to open a satellite office at Georgian Place in Somerset in October.

The office will be the group’s fourth.

Aside from a main location at 1322 Eisenhower Blvd., Richland Township, Pediatric Care Specialists have offices in downtown Johnstown and Ebensburg.

Dr. Andrew Garbarino, one of three partners in the practice, said the Somerset office is being added in response to high gas prices.

He said the office has been experiencing more cancellations due to gasoline prices.

At the same time, when the practice studied its patient base, it found that more than 1,000 of its patients live south of Route 30.

The partners decided that it made more sense for one doctor and other staff members to carpool to Somerset each day than to make many more people drive to the Johnstown area.

“One of the reasons we put the main office in Richland is because we have a good patient base in Somerset, northern Cambria County and Johnstown, and we felt it was a central location,” Garbarino said.

“But with the price of gas, it’s to the point that the drive was becoming so expensive for some people that it was equal or more than the cost of an additional co-pay.”

Garbarino said the practice is adding a fourth partner physician to the staff. That will allow the Somerset office to be staffed by a doctor on a daily basis.

Additionally, the regular office staff will include either a physician’s assistant or registered nurse practitioner as well as others in supporting roles. The practice expects to hire one or two additional employees for the new office.

Garbarino said the Somerset office will work similarly to the Children’s Hospital satellite office at Pediatric Care Specialists’ Richland location.

“This is the same thing we did with Children’s Hospital,” Garbarino said.

“We said to them, ‘Why should people from here have to drive there when a few of them could come here and save so many trips?’ We applied that same logic to this decision.”

        

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