North Country Family Health Center recently acquired the Lowville Medical Associates building in downtown Lowville.
01 Jul 2024 —
Jefferson County health care network takes over Lewis County medical practice. North Country Family Health Center acquired the practice from Lowville Medical Associates earlier this year.
North Country Family Health Center is based in Watertown, but it is a network of facilities, with a few primary care offices in the Watertown area and a dental office in Lowville. Overall, North Country Family Health Center treats about 16,000 patients in Jefferson and Lewis counties.
April Fallon, director of marketing and communications for North Country Family Health Center, said Lewis County suffers from a gap in local primary care.
“This gap in primary care will allow us to serve, I believe, about 2,200 additional patients over the long term, and it allows people who live in Lewis County to not have to travel to get basic primary care services.”
The building already has two primary care physicians on staff, and Fallon says they plan to hire a third physician and a physician assistant, which will expand their primary care and sports medicine services.
Acquiring the building was just the first step in the network’s expansion into Lewis County. The second step is to renovate the building. Last week, the North Country Family Health Center received a $549,500 grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission.
“This particular grant allows us to add four exam rooms, a provider office, a nurses station and a reception area,” Fallon said, “to better utilize the building space, primarily for primary medical services.”
North Country Family Health Center is what’s known as a Federally Qualified Health Center, or FQHC. This allows it to get federal funding, but it also requires it to meet some strict requirements. First, FQHCs must always be accepting new patients.
They also must meet certain accessibility requirements, which Fallon said will be factored into Lowvile’s renovation.
“Things like elevators, main entrances and adding new rooms so we can see new patients, all fall under the qualifications we have to provide as an FQHC.”
Federally qualified health centers must also offer more than primary care. They must provide dental and mental health care. Additionally, Fallon said, they must treat patients from all age.
“That’s, I would say, the most important takeaway from FQHCs is that it’s our responsibility to treat the whole patient. And we treat people from zero to 150 years old. [years old] “So you’re treating the whole family,” Fallon said.
The Lowville medical office will remain open throughout the renovations, which are expected to begin in August.
