Stoneman Urgent Care delivers a dose of reassurance

It’s rarely a good day when you end up at an urgent care center but having the best possible experience there can make a bad day better.

Tiphany Hersey of Sandwich has discovered that fact during multiple visits to Cape Cod Healthcare’s Urgent Care Center at the Stoneman Outpatient Center in Sandwich. It’s one of six CCHC Urgent Care centers, open seven days a week. Hyannis, Harwich, Falmouth and Sandwich locations are open year-round. Osterville and Orleans are seasonal, from May to early October. The centers see about 125,000 patients annually and treat health problems that don’t require the level of treatment available only in hospital emergency departments.

Tiphany has been a frequent visitor to the Stoneman center this year because her daughter, Isabella, 18, suffered several ear infections; a problem going back to when she was a baby. Bella just graduated from Sandwich High School where she was captain of the varsity softball team. She’s a dancer, works at Cape Cod Coffee, babysits, and is headed to Framingham State University in the fall to study early childhood education. She doesn’t have time for ear infections. 

Tiphany said she loves Bella’s primary care doctor, but she has learned while raising her kids that sometimes the quickest way to get treatment is to head to an urgent care center, rather than try to get an appointment at the doctor’s office.

“My kids, growing up, were really active in sports. Unfortunately, we’ve had our concussions and our breaks and all kinds of reasons to run to the local urgent care,” she said. “As a result, they’re just my go-to now because every single person, when I get there, is great. … They’re just all so helpful and nice.”

Tiphany checks the wait-time online before she heads to Stoneman. She really likes that staff at the clinic listen to her and Bella.

“Sometimes, you just don’t know,” she said about the decision about whether to head to urgent care. “It’s like, do I bring her? Do I not bring her? Do I wait a couple of days? As a mom, you don’t want to do the wrong thing.”

Concerns are Taken Seriously

But her concerns are always taken seriously at Stoneman, she said.

“No doctor – or nurse – ever makes me feel like, ‘Oh, that’s what you’re here for?’ or ‘You should have waited.’ They just never act like that. They always act like the concern is valid.”

Clinicians are also sympathetic to Bella, she said. “Because she’s almost an adult, they’re talking to her, and they always follow up. You’ll get the nice phone call the next day or so. The follow-up shows that they care,” Tiphany said.

As all CCHC Urgent Care centers are staffed with ER doctors and advanced practitioners from Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital, they bring a higher level of expertise for all types of injuries and illnesses. Tiphany ended up at Stoneman herself one day with intense pain from what turned out to be a kidney stone and infection. But right away, she said, the staff sent her to the hospital emergency department because she needed intravenous antibiotics and fluids. She appreciated that the doctor immediately saw she needed more than urgent care could provide.

For Tiphany, Stoneman Urgent Care delivers a dose of reassurance.

“Sometimes it’s just a sore throat – it’s not strep, or there is nothing you can do,” she said about diagnoses. “But the ruling-out is still peace of mind for me.”