RIO RANCHO, N.M. (KRQE) – A local nurse practitioner is taking a huge leap of faith, opening up her own clinic years before she originally planned. Ten years as a nurse for Lovelace and four as a nurse practitioner, Laura McClesky has never strayed from her love for medicine.
“Sometimes you need to break the rules for the patient,” said McClesky. She says the fast pace environment at bigger providers was missing something.
“You’ve got to totally dictate your care based on policies and procedures,” said McClesky. That policy made the patient and provider relationship less personal.
McClesky says she already had plans to open up her own clinic but that was going to be years down the road. That was until the pandemic hit.
As hospitals filled up from the surge of patients, she saw others in need of routine care waiting. So McClesky took a leap and went solo.
“I want it to be kinda like old fashion medicine where you can actually take care of the patient the way you want to,” said McClesky who opened up Laura’s Primary & Rapid Care in Rio Rancho.
“You know your provider, your provider knows you. You’re not just some number with an insurance group,” said McClesky. Everything is done completely by the books but McClesky says it’s more personal.
“I’m not in this to make a ton of money, I am in this to actually take care of the patient,” said McClesky. The clinic may be small but she’s still able to do everything from a simple physical to checkups.
“I will be accepting insurances and really trying to reach out to that self-pay population and just getting the word out,” said McClesky. It doesn’t get any more personal than this as her kids help run the front desk.
“I love to teach and they are both pre-med,” said McClesky whose local family helping your family feel better. McClesky says the clinic came four years before she had planned.
