SBDC Success Story
John Halpert of Priority 1 Urgent Care
After initially graduating from college with a degree in geology, Jonathan Halpert found himself increasingly engaged in the emergency medical services field. Ultimately discovering a passion for practicing medicine, he went on to medical school and, following graduation from Albany Medical College, Dr. Halpert became board-certified in emergency medicine, working in the emergency departments of several Capital Region hospitals. Dr. Halpert was recruited to work as the medical director of an emerging local multispecialty practice association’s fledgling urgent care program and, intrigued by the growth the urgent care industry was experiencing at the time, he became a founding member and officer with the North East Regional Urgent Care Association. In 2017, Dr. Halpert decided to leave the world of system-based corporate health care and create an independent patient-centered urgent care practice.
After meeting with several local banks, Dr. Halpert was referred to the Albany SBDC for assistance with refining his business plan and developing financial projections. With SBDC’s support, Dr. Halpert obtained an SBA-guaranteed loan to launch his business and Priority 1 Urgent Care opened in April 2019. By early 2020, with the initial threat of COVID-19 making patients leery of seeking medical attention within an office setting, the Priority 1 management team reevaluated its business model in order to continue to operate while maintaining its high-quality on-demand health care without placing either staff members or the public at unreasonable risk. With assistance from Albany SBDC, Priority 1 Urgent Care assembled a reliable cache of personal protective equipment and reformulated its protective protocols for airborne infectious disease management.
Realigning its strategy to more closely provide services that the market demanded, Priority 1 began to recover initial losses and by late 2020 began seeing record setting levels of patient visits. Priority 1 will soon reach its second anniversary of treating patients and expects to continue to play an important role in the overall health and wellness of the community it serves.
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