AST Primary Care has opened its seventh facility in Southern Illinois in Salem.
The Greater Salem Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting Thursday afternoon to welcome the facility in the former motel management building at 126 North Hotze Road just north of West Main Street.
Nurse Practioner Krea Rose is the medical provider at the facility.
Nurse Practioner Krea Rose will be seeing patients at the new AST Primary Care office in Salem.
“We do all primary care services things like chronic disease management, sick and wellness visits, things like that. We also offer hormone replacement therapy with pellets so people who qualify and have hormone deficiencies if they qualify could be a candidate.”
The Chief Operation Officer of AST Abbey Gettinger says a major renovation was completed to overhaul the north end of the building.
“We have three exam rooms located on this side of the building. Then we have the provider’s office centralized in the middle. There is a lab procedure room on the other side which is where you would do pellet insertion, Botox for migraines and that sort of thing, and then a break room.”
Gettinger says they are still deciding how to use the south end of the 3,500-square-foot building.
“We’ve had some different specialties reach out to us as well like pediatrics, dermatology, kind of different things in the works we are hashing out before deciding. We are also talking about making it a satellite surgery clinic where we could see surgery patients here to offer them more convenient care closer to home. So lots of different things in the works of what we could do.”
Gettinger says their goal is to provide great customer service, same-day appointments, and a human always answering the phone.
Gettinger says in addition to the primary care facilities, AST has surgery centers in Centralia and Herrin with one to be constructed in the future in Mt. Vernon. An eighth primary care facility will soon open in Carlyle.
One of the three exam rooms at the new AST Primary Care Facility in Salem.
