St. David’s HealthCare is making plans to serve the growing number of aging adults in the Georgetown area.

“We heard a lot from our medical staff physicians, especially the specialists—cardiologists, pulmonologists and orthopedists—who were saying they had a large number of Medicare patients in their populations, and they didn’t have primary care physicians,” said John Rebok, vice president of physician operations at St. David’s HealthCare. “As Georgetown continues to grow, and this population is one of the fastest-growing in Central Texas, we found there to be this need for patients moving in with either commercial insurance or transitioning to Medicare who were unable to find primary care doctors.”

This summer the Georgetown Center for Adult Medicine is expected to open in affiliation with St. David’s HealthCare at 105 Wildwood Drive, Bldg. 1, stes. 105 and 111, in a former shopping center. The center will open with two doctors specializing in care for patients typically age 55 and older who either have or are transitioning to Medicare.

“The challenge in Georgetown has been finding a doctor who accepts Medicare,” St. David’s Georgetown Hospital CEO Hugh Brown said. “It’s very financially challenging to take on new [Medicare] patients.”

Rebok said after surveying patients in the St. David’s Georgetown Hospital emergency room and studying the area’s demographics, the need for primary care and geriatric providers became apparent.

“I think we have a shortage of physicians that we’re seeing in the market,” he said. “In Georgetown there are very few primary care physicians.”

In anticipation of the opening Drs. Paula Bordelon and Saramma George have begun seeing patients at Austin Avenue Medical Plaza, 3201 S. Austin Ave., Ste. 115.

“We are getting many phone calls for new patient appointments because doctors stopped taking or are not taking new Medicare patients,” George said.

The new office will open with Bordelon and George, and depending on patient growth, additional doctors could be added to the practice as well as additional or ancillary services, George said.

“Eventually when we are in full swing we will likely have a social worker on staff,” she said, adding that a social worker could help coordinate with Meals on Wheels or help find transportation for patients.

The doctors also see patients at the Wesleyan at Estrella assisted and independent living facilities in Georgetown.

Bordelon said the center will be able to offer seniors and elderly patients a chance to optimize their health. During a new patient appointment, which can take at least an hour, the doctors review all of a patient’s medications as well as his or her social history and which specialists he or she is seeing, she said.

“In our practice we see seniors of all ages, which give us an idea of what it takes to live to be 90,” Bordelon said. “We’re helping [patients] age well in the healthiest manner.”

When it opens the office will have nine exam rooms as well as offer X-ray and laboratory services.

Bordelon said the center was designed with enhanced colors to help individuals with eyesight challenges as well as widened doorways and hallways for wheelchair accessibility throughout.

“We’ve tried to plan it with all disabilities in mind,” Bordelon said. “If you have any physical infirmities, we are definitely trying to meet your needs.”