Name of business: Good Night Pediatrics
Address: 2651 N. Green Valley Parkway, Suite 101D, Henderson, NV, 89014
Phone: 939-6800
Website: www.goodnightpeds.com
Hours of operation: 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. every night
Operated by: Larry Blumenthal is chief financial officer; Michael Arausa runs the Henderson branch.
In business since: Good Night Pediatrics opened its first location in Arizona in November 2004 and its first Nevada location in January 2010.
Describe your business.
Good Night Pediatrics is a nighttime urgent care facility just for kids. We are open every night of the year, including weekends and holidays.
Every patient is seen by a pediatrician. We offer onsite digital X-ray and laboratory services. We contract with most major insurance plans, accept Nevada Medicaid and offer a flat-rate fee for cash pay patients.
Who are your customers?
Anyone with a child who gets sick outside normal office hours. We treat children ages newborn to 18. As an urgent care, we take patients on a walk-in basis, so no appointment is necessary.
What makes your business unique?
Historically, the only after-hours alternative available to parents was the emergency room. If a child got sick at night, on a weekend or holiday, parents had to choose either to wait until their doctor was available the next business day or go to the ER.
While the ER is appropriate for truly emergent medical needs, it is not necessary for most of the childhood ailments that arise after hours. ERs, by definition, offer the highest cost and highest level of care.
As an urgent care, we offer the right care at the right time. In most cases, the care received at Good Night Pediatrics will be faster than an ER and less expensive.
Even as urgent care centers pop up all over Las Vegas, Good Night Pediatrics is truly unique in both the scope of our services and our hours of operation. We specialize in pediatrics. We also are one of the only all-night urgent care centers.
What is your business philosophy?
It starts with the notion that no child should have to go to the ER unless it is for an emergency. The unfortunate reality is that ERs are overcrowded and are the most expensive form of care.
Unfortunately, children end up there after hours in disproportionate numbers due to a lack of alternatives.
Good Night Pediatrics believes in putting the “care” back into health care. We treat every patient, coworker and business partner with the highest standards of CARE: Customer service, Accountability, Respect and Excellence.
What’s the most important part of your job?
Maintaining and growing a 365-day-a-year operation across multiple locations is not an easy task, especially in the health care field and in particular in pediatric medicine. We need to provide not only top-notch medical care, but also peace of mind for parents and a comfortable environment for families.
What is the hardest part about doing business in Las Vegas?
The business community is strongly centered on networking and relationship building, which can be difficult with a business model that operates outside of the typical 9-to-5 work day.
What is the best part about doing business in Las Vegas?
Las Vegas is a natural fit for our business model. It is a 24-hour city, with a built-in demand for the type of after-hours services we provide.
What obstacles has your business overcome?
The notion that we are competing with a child’s primary care physician.
When we enter a new market, many primary care physicians initially view us as competition. Our intent is to complement the primary physician, not compete, but we often must prove that empirically.
We do so in a number of ways, which are built into the business model and reinforced daily. We don’t offer well child care, developmental checkups, vaccines or other preventive care. We provide the primary care physician a copy of the patient chart the next day, and direct patients back to them for follow-up care. We also have utilized community outreach efforts to assure doctors and families that our clinic exists to supplement primary care efforts and provide the right level of care for children when it’s needed.
How can Nevada improve its business climate?
By being more receptive to new and innovative business models. The health care industry, like many others, is changing rapidly, and providers must adapt and evolve quickly in order to succeed.
The traditional Nevada business climate centered on networking and relationship-building over a long period of time should look instead for ways to attract and integrate new concepts and businesses more quickly.
With regards to the health care industry in particular, encouraging and fostering partnerships within the medical community will be crucial going forward.
What have you learned from the recession?
During the recession, Good Night Pediatrics realized how crucial it is to provide affordable and accessible medical care to families in need.
By offering a flat rate fee for cash pay patients, our pediatricians are able to assist patients who may have had no choice but to visit the emergency room or avoid seeking medical care altogether due to a lack of insurance coverage. The recession has taught us how to provide high-quality, cost-effective care to all manner of patients.