Epicenter Entrepreneur: Dr. Jeff Patey
~Written by Hannah McDole, Warren High School
Today we’re highlighting a success story. We’ll be talking to Quality Care Associates Urgent Care and Wellness (QCA) and what BB2C did to help. So in his own words, Dr. Patey explains his business startup.
My name is Jeff Patey, I am an EM residency trained, board-certified emergency physician with 26 years experience in Emergency Department care. I have lived here in Marietta since 1993, and am married to my wife Chris, who has 24 years experience as a nurse in emergency medicine. We opened QCA in January 2019.
Having lived here for so long, and having been involved in the medical field in this area, we recognized an opportunity to provide great care for patients in this area. We think we can provide great care at an affordable price, and give the community an alternative to expensive emergency room care.
We have two basic areas of care. Walk-in urgent care is offered 8a-8p Monday-Saturday. We treat medical illnesses, both adult and pediatric, lacerations, and a variety of injuries and medical complaints. We have EKG, extensive laboratory testing, pulmonary nebulizer treatments, X-ray (via our relationship with First Settlement Orthopedics), and the ability to evaluate and treat eye injuries and complaints also. Our second area is Primary Care. There we have nurse practitioners, and Dr. Richard Clark, seeing primary care patients by appointment.
We are unique, in that we are an independently owned medical facility in Marietta. We offer personalized, quality care provided by our employees who are highly experienced, passionate for what they do, and really care about our community.
The BB2C Epicenter provided us with excellent advice and guidance in setting up the organization, anticipating business costs and processes that would be a challenge, and helping us formulate our overall business plan. We had several meetings with Pamela Lankford, the Epicenter’s small business coach, at first introductory, and then each progressively more complex and detailed. The Epicenter helped us formulate a cohesive plan that not only helped us feel comfortable moving forward, but also assisted us in qualifying for, and obtaining our business loans. It was an awesome, invaluable resource and help to us, I would highly recommend to anyone starting a small business.
As with all businesses receiving assistance from the BB2C Epicenter, QCA is providing opportunities for students through various programs. Even though they were in the start-up phase, they provided job shadowing opportunities to high school students, one from Washington County Career Center and one from Frontier high school. We look forward to them sharing knowledge with students through other BB2C programs.
Thank you so much, Dr. Jeff Patey, for sharing your success story, we wish you the best!