New Dedham Walk-In Clinic Looks to Make Customers Happy and Healthy

Doctors Express Dedham is looking to make life easier for patients.

Rick Crews, president of the new Dedham walk-in clinic, said his facility not only offers care from board certified doctors but also guarantees shorter wait times and lower costs while extending opening hours that work with busy families.

“We provide high quality care at a low cost, with a real focus on providing an excellent patient experience,” Crews said.  “Healthcare is still a business where people don’t expect to have a good experience when they go.  They expect to wait.  They expect to pay a lot of money.  They expect to run into at least one rude person; We’re the exact opposite.”

The new clinic, which opened Sept. 27 on Route 1,  is open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

The goal is for patients to be seen in less than an hours, and while waiting they will be offered water bottles and chocolate chip cookies, coffee and iPads and can enjoy one of the flat screen televisions which are located in the waiting room and patient rooms.

“We’re always focusing on what’s the experience is like for our patients from the second they walk in the door,” Crews said.  “We communicate very well with them and at the same time we have real high quality care doctors.”

Doctors Express physicians are all board certified.  Working at the Dedham location is Dr. Tomas Lichauco, a Family Practice physician who has treated patients in Dedham for 16 years and Dr. Kimberly Schoen, a board certified emergency room physician who last worked at the Faulkner Hospital. 

“I think a center like this is much need,” Dr. Lichauco said. “These urgent care centers meet the gap between hospitals, primary care and emergency rooms.  It’s part of an evolving healthcare system.”

When customers arrive, they register and present their insurance card.  If they have a co-pay, they will pay it up front.  They will then be taken to the exam room and will be seen by a doctor, who can conduct x-rays, lab work, and prescribe medicine. The facility will also send a copy of the paper work to the patient’s primary care physician.

Crews said choosing an urgent care center over a hospital is a no-brainer.

“Would you rather go to the ER, sit there  for five hours and pay $750 or would you rather go to Doctor’s Express, get in and out in under an hour, pay $150 for the same thing and be treated really really well?,” Crews asked. 

The new clinic is open at 370 Providence Highway and accepts patients from a variety of insurance companies.