BNJacksonGA

(Doraville, Georgia) - It is a distinct honor and a privilege to offer high quality, affordable healthcare to the international and minority communities of the greater Atlanta, Georgia region.

Very often when patients, physicians, community leaders, pastors, priests, teachers, business people and politicians visit our facility, I tell them that they just left earth and walked onto Mars or Venus.

Why?

Let me explain, walking into the International Medical Clinics (IMC) is like walking into a clinic on another planet because the healthcare experience we offer is like no other.  We can provide the healthcare experience in many different  languages (i.e. Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Hindi, Urdu, Romanian, English, etc.).

Unlike most clinics we offer a large variety of physician specialties, including obstetrics, prenatal care, gynecology, infertility treatments, Integrative Medicine, foot and leg surgery/podiatry, family medicine, internal medicine, urgent care & minor emergencies, occupational medicine & work injuries, pediatrics, orthopedics, sports medicine, acupuncture (administered by an East European Neurologist), individualized natural weight loss programs (M.D. supervised), electro- therapy (elimination or reduction of acute and chronic joint pain), and muscle and nerve problems.

Dr. Mel Colon

Furthermore, IMC honors, respects and understands each culture we work with providing a lower and affordable fee structure. With each patient that we treat we take whatever time is needed spend to explain everything about our treatment in detail while making our patients feel like family!

Our dedicated doctors and nurses are available seven days a week. All of our physicians are board certified. The human resources and environment within IMC needs to be dramatically different from other clinics to fully and properly serve multicultural and minority communities. We are quite different from other clinics in that part of our charter, mission and by-laws necessitate that we give back to the community with frequent free community health outreach programs including health fairs and healthcare lectures to churches, businesses, schools and organizations.

Members of our community work very hard making it difficult to see a physician during the week. Therefore, we are open, Monday through Sunday from 9 am to 7 pm and sometimes later if necessary.

IMC has on-site Diagnostic Ultrasound, Echocardiograms, X-ray, MRI, CT scans, Mammography, Bone density studies, Lab (Blood tests), EKG, Physical Therapy and a Pharmacy. In most traditional clinics, patients generally have to wait a long time to see the physician and then only spend a few minutes with the doctor.  At IMC, the patients experience is quite the opposite; waiting only a few minutes and then spending quality time with the physician.

Our mission statement:

International Medical Clinics (IMC) has developed a new and uniquely innovative model of healthcare delivery to exclusively serve uninsured populations. This multi-physician specialty center effectively addresses the healthcare needs of the expanding multi-cultural uninsured community, one of America’s top ten national concerns. IMC accomplishes this mission by honoring and respecting cultural diversity, conducting ongoing focus groups to identify the needs and issues of different populations, providing substantive and skills-based healthcare education, and offering reduced medical fees. IMC is staffed with multilingual employees (Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Russian, Hindi, Urdu, Romanian, English and more), offering superior care within the context of each patient’s cultural milieu. IMC has developed extensive expertise in international medicine in the United States. Using the highest professional and ethical standards, IMC improves medical care for all patients as it becomes an integral part of the international community.

We are affiliated with a wide array of cultural organizations, associations, clubs, chambers of commerce, and faith based organizations.

Medical issues that International Medical Clinics addresses:

Health Disparities

Ethnic and racial minorities tend to receive lower-quality health care than whites do, even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable. Minorities are less likely than other Americans to get potentially life saving screening tests such as mammograms and Pap smears, flu and pneumonia vaccines, as well as to take their children for check-ups. Differences in treating heart disease, cancer, and diabetes partly contribute to higher death rates for minorities. Disparities in the health care delivered to racial and ethnic minorities are real and are associated with worse health outcomes. This trend is unacceptable. The real challenge for IMC lies not in debating whether disparities exist, but in developing and implementing strategies to reduce and eliminate them.

Health Literacy

Health Literacy is defined as the degree to which people can obtain, process and understand basic health information (e.g. following prescriptions and post operative instructions, etc.) and services they need to make appropriate healthcare decisions.  For the 90 million Americans with limited literacy skills, it is difficult to read materials as simple as the front page of a newspaper or a bus schedule much less the complicated documents that go along with medical care in our country today. We believe that quality health care depends on patients who are active participants in their own care, and low health literacy robs them of that opportunity. Improving health literacy can dramatically reduce health disparities. Health literacy can save lives, money, and the health and well being of millions of Americans.

IMC is most interested in receiving meaningful input from the multicultural community specifically presenting potential community health projects that our board of directors may consider.

Now a bit of the philosophy of IMC………….

What are the 7 things patients should hear at every visit?

1. "Welcome to our practice."

Each and every patient is warmly welcomed with a big smile.

2. "What are the most important issues you would like to cover today?"

We ask each patient this question to make sure we deal with their most pressing problems.

3. "I believe you can do it."

Empowering patients isn't just about giving them responsibility to make their healthcare decisions. They also need to know that they can succeed, and they frequently look to us for that confirmation.

Often, patients are more pessimistic than they need to be. We set our patients up for success by delivering that message, and other similar ones. Many of our patients have few advocates pulling for them. Helping them to feel our support makes a big difference.

4. "Here's what you can expect in the next days/weeks/months."

Physicians diagnose many medical problems, but we have also come to realize that that is rarely the most important thing to our patients. "People just want to know when they're going to get better."

Patients have complicated lives to plan, just like we do. They look to us for guidance on whether they'll be better in time for that vacation next week, or whether they'll be able to host their family for a holiday dinner.

5. "If things don't go as you expect, or if you get worse, let me know right away."

At IMC, we invite patients to follow up with our doctors and nurses to communicate their progress and to please not be shy if they have any questions.

6. "Do you think you're depressed?"

Depression is often referred to as the "under" disease: It's under diagnosed, underreported, and under treated. Still, up to 50 percent of depressed patients are never diagnosed, even though making the diagnosis needn't be complicated or time-consuming. Studies show that simply asking the patient if she's depressed may be very effective.

In practice, many common complaints, including sleeplessness, chronic pain, anxiety, and other vague illnesses can be exacerbated by depression. In many situations, treating the depression can resolve the symptoms. However, many patients would never bring up their mood because of pride or because their culture frowns on it. By asking this simple question, we can give these patients permission to discuss their feelings.

7. "I care about you."

None of our healthcare providers sees medicine as just a job, and the reason we come to work on weekends and stay up nights taking our patients' calls is because we care about each and every one of them. At IMC, we communicate how much we care!

The board certified physicians specialties and other services available at IMC include:

• Occupational Medicine/Work Injuries
• Family Practice
• Internal Medicine
• Urgent Care/Emergency Care
• Podiatry/Foot and leg surgery
• Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery
• Obstetrics/Prenatal care/Gynecology
• Sports Medicine
• Disability Physicals
• Immigration Physicals
• Acupuncture by a Russian Neurologist Physician
• Natural Weight Loss
• Orthopedics and Arthritis
• Pediatrics
• On-site Physical Therapy
• On-site X-ray
• On-site Diagnostic Ultrasound
• On-site Laboratory blood tests
• On-site EKG
• On-site bone density studies (i.e. for Osteoporosis)
• On-site Pharmacy
• Our own off-site MRI and CT scan

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