SCARBOROUGH -A rapidly expanding company offering urgent-care medical services in northern New England opened its first facility in Maine on Monday in Scarborough.

ClearChoiceMD, at 273 Payne Road, across from Cabela’s at First Look Plaza, offers a variety of medical services seven days a week, 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. Doctor-owned and operated, ClearChoiceMD has added four facilities in New Hampshire and four in Vermont this year.

The Scarborough clinic is the first in Maine for New Hampshire-based ClearChoiceMD, according to founder Dr. Marcus Hampers, who said a market evaluation of northern New England showed “a clear need for urgent care in the Greater Portland region.”

The town of Scarborough is home to a variety of medical offices, research facilities and more at the Maine Medical Center campus off Route 1, but there is only one other walk-in medical services office – Scarborough Health Care, which is located at 69 U.S. Route 1.

Scarborough Health Care is only open five days a week, however, not too far down the road, in Saco, there is also the Southern Maine Health Care Walk-In Clinic, which is open seven days a week.

Walk-in clinic options in South Portland include Concentra Urgent Care on Western Avenue and Intermed Primary Care on Foden Road (users must be Intermed patients).

Karen Martin, executive director of the Scarborough Economic Development Corp., said Monday that with the town’s growing population, she can see why there would be a need for additional walk-in clinics.

“I think (the ClearChoiceMD) clinic would be very attractive to people with busy lives, and people are likely excited about another option for their medical needs,” Martin said.

Hampers, at ClearChoiceMD, said the importance of walk-in or urgent care clinics is that they “alleviate the burden on emergency rooms and primary care physicians. I’ve seen how emergency rooms are becoming overcrowded with patients who, through no fault of their own, either don’t have a primary care physician or they can’t get in to see their (doctor) for an acute visit. The end result for the patient is (often) a very costly and inconvenient trip to the emergency room.”

Hampers said that urgent care is also able to offer many services that a doctor’s office may not provide, like X-rays, stitches, IV fluids and medications, the ability to fill a prescription on site and more.

He said ClearChoiceMD clinics treat “urgent, non-life-threatening medical needs,” including cold and flu, fevers, rashes, aches, pains and backaches, minor burns, cuts and simple broken bones. No appointment is necessary, and most patients are able to get in and out in about an hour.

In addition, ClearChoiceMD also offers a variety of immunizations and vaccinations, testing for a variety of ailments, including Lyme disease, screening for diabetes, cholesterol and high blood pressure and treatment of concussions and sports injuries, as well as school sports and annual physicals.

Hampers said the new Scarborough clinic would operate with approximately 12 full-time employees.

“Every day, there will be a doctor working with two medical assistants, a nurse and an X-ray technician. As our patient volume grows, we will bring on more staff, including physician assistants,” he said.

He opened the first ClearChoiceMD clinic in June of this year in Vermont and in the past six months has expanded to add eight other locations, including the new facility in Scarborough.

Hampers is from New Hampshire, and the headquarters for ClearChoiceMD is located in New London. He attended Dartmouth College and earned his medical degree at the State University of New York’s College of Medicine in Syracuse.

For the past 20 years, he has practiced medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, as well as other hospitals throughout New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. In addition, Hampers is board certified in three specialties – urgent care, critical care and internal medicine.

ClearChoiceMD accepts all types of medical insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid. Self-pay visits are a flat $100, while X-rays, lab work or a procedure, such as stitches, would cost an additional $25 to $50, Hampers said.

The goal, he added, is to “offer expert, affordable treatment for a wide range of medical needs” in a fully equipped facility.

Overall, according to Hampers, ClearChoiceMD is able to keep its costs eight to 10 times lower than what a hospital would charge for the same service. One way he is able to do that is to work with the insurance carriers, and another is that, “we do not have an entire health-care system to support.”

The new ClearChoiceMD urgent care clinic is now open at 273 Payne Road in Scarborough, across from the Cabela’s shopping plaza. The clinic is open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. Dr. Marcus Hampers