AllCare Provides All the Care for Patients

The AllCare Clinic on Jackson Avenue delivers just what its name implies — affordable, quality health care for everyone who walks in the doors. Meeting the needs of the underserved has always been a personal mission for Kymberly Van Every, certified nurse practitioner and owner of AllCare.

Van Every developed a passion for health care after watching her mother, who was also a nurse, deliver twins. She received multiple degrees in nursing, including a Master’s of Science in nursing from Vanderbilt in 2004.

Van Every opened AllCare in 2010 to serve those without the money or connections to easily access care.

“My husband and I were on our way to a conference in New Orleans when I thought of the name,” Van Every said. “I came up with AllCare because I wanted to help anyone who needs it. “

Van Every and her family moved to Oxford after her husband accepted an engineering job. She researched underserved medical areas intending to serve the poor while she helped herself by paying off student loans. Oxford fit the bill in every respect.

The AllCare staff, which includes Van Every, registered nurses and a primary care physician board certified in sports medicine, Henry L. Sherman, MD, initially strives to meet patients’ immediate needs. If Allcare doesn’t have the resources to help a particular patient, the team quickly connects the patient with an appropriate specialist who will honor their insurance.

Owner and certified Nurse Practitioner Kymberly Van Every

“The best compliment I’ve received was when a person from Blue Mountain came to me because one of our patients referred her to us,” Van Every said. “Our patient told her ‘If (AllCare) can’t find you somewhere to go, nobody can.’”

Van Every adds she would rather have similar remarks circulating in the community than be known as the quickest provider in town. She says clinic staff work hard to offer patients efficient care in a timely manner, but speed is not the most critical component.

Ven Every’s colleague at AllCare, Dr. Sherman, is the Athletics and Student Health physician at the University of Mississippi.

AllCare honors all major insurance providers, including Medicaid and Medicare. For people without insurance, the clinic offers a sliding fee schedule based on a patient’s income.

A major headline-making shakeup in the medical field is implementation of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare). The clinic saw fewer patients in August and September — possibly due to confusion about the law, added Van Every. Since the computer registration site for Obamacare went live on Oct. 1, visits to the clinic have stabilized.

“Once people realized their employers weren’t going to snatch their coverage from them, they started making visits again,” Van Every said. “However, I do think (the law) is going to have an impact on us in January. I think a lot of small businesses won’t be able to afford insurance for their employees.”
Van Every offers healthcare insurance to 100 percent of her employees.

“I want my employees to know that the goal of this clinic is to have a place that is concerned about you and your health care,” Van Every said. “It wouldn’t be right for a health care clinic to not provide health coverage to their employees.”

—Justin Taylor, Associate Editor, HottyToddy.com

—You can email Justin at justin.taylor@hottytoddy.com