If I could pick one word to describe UCA in 2019, it would be GROWTH!

We started 2019 by moving our St. Vincent’s East location to the Pilot building.  We also hired a full-time Physician Assistant, Jenna Risley for this office.  The additional space and provider along with our existing four physicians will allow us to continue to meet the growing need for urological care in Trussville and the surrounding locations.

In July, we completed the expansion of our Alabaster office.  This created more work space for our front office staff, additional exam rooms for our full-time Physician Assistant, and a full-service lab area.  As with our Trussville location, the UCA office in Alabaster has plenty of space and providers to meet the growth and needs of residents in Shelby County.

Also in July, we welcomed Dr. Matthew Purcell to our growing UCA family.  Dr. Purcell joined Dr. Bivins at our Princeton location.  With the addition of Dr. Purcell, our Princeton location is now open five days a week.

In the fall, we completed construction on our Grandview expansion just before Thanksgiving.  We’ve added seven additional exam rooms at this location so that two physicians and a Physician’s assistant can see patients.  We also hired a full-time Physician Assistant, Rebecca Kearney, for this location.  Rebecca will begin seeing patients in January.  Grandview continues to be one of our fastest growing locations, and the additional space should meet these demands.

Our St. Vincent’s Birmingham office underwent a recent remodel.  New flooring, fresh paint, and signage were some of the many changes made.  We will be adding a Physician Assistant to this location in early 2020 to assist with office visits, hospital consults, and surgeries.

The UCA Women’s Center continues to thrive and celebrated its one-year anniversary in September.  We have partnered with Medtronic and launched a patient care pathway for Overactive Bladder (OAB).  We have a full-time Female Health Navigator who closely monitors these patients to ensure they are getting appropriate treatments and diagnostics in a timely manner.  Improving the quality of life for patients with OAB continues to be a priority for the Providers at our Women’s Center.

In addition to OAB, UCA has also created patient care pathways for Prostate Cancer, BPH, and Bladder Cancer. We have hired Patient Navigators for each of these disease states and a Data Analyst who continuously monitors and reviews patient data to ensure patients and providers are following these care pathways.  The collaborative efforts between this team and the providers ensures best practices are followed with every patient.

October 2019 was a record month for UCA in terms of patient visits and surgical cases.  UCA saw 2,079 new patients during the month and 7,255 established patients.  Surgical volume for the month was 7,597 cases.  We are grateful for each and every patient that chooses our group!

Looking ahead, construction has just started again at our Homewood location.  We will be moving our Dispensary just off the lobby area.  The new dispensary will have more room to offer medications such as Sildenafil, Tadalafil, and Stendra for treatment of ED.  We will also continue to offer specialty drugs for our cancer patients.  We will be creating new lab area and reference lab with new state-of-the-art equipment to process lab work in the office.  Finally, we have already outgrown our oncology department and will be doing some renovations to allow for more infusion chairs and work areas for providers and nursing staff.  These renovations should be complete by March 2020.

UCA has begun plans to relocate our Medical West office in conjunction with the new hospital move.  We are planning to build an office building at the corner of Letson Farms Parkway and Bell Hill Road.  This will be an exciting project for UCA over the next 2-3 years!

I want to commend our providers and staff on the excellent service and treatment we provide to patients each day. We continue to strive to meet our core values of Respect, Teamwork, Adaptability, Communication, and Timeliness.  We monitor our patient satisfaction each month through surveys, and the practice and physicians consistently score above the national average in all categories (see recent results). We value your feedback and encourage you to always reach out if you have suggestions on how we can improve. In addition, we would also encourage you to leave comments regarding your positive experiences on our Facebook page or leave a Google Review.

As always please feel free to reach out to me or any of our management team if we can be of assistance. Our contact information can be found at https://www.urologycentersalabama.com/staff.html.

Respectfully,

Jason Biddy
CEO of Urology Centers of Alabama