Troy University graduate and certified nurse practitioner Rebecca Allen-Jones recently opened her new primary care clinic in Troy, helping to fill a big void in primary care offices in the area.

Jones is a Luverne native that has earned her associates, bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Troy University and has been a certified nurse practitioner for five years. Now, Jones is returning to the Troy Regional Medical Center (TRMC) family, where her nursing career began.

Jones started as at the hospital as a tech when she was in nursing school and moved into the ICU after graduation and then to the emergency room and was a house supervisor for the nurses on staff, as well. After getting certified as a nurse practitioner, she worked in an urgent care facility in Troy before returning to open a clinic at Troy Regional Primary Care, on the campus of Troy Regional Medical Center.

“This area, in particular, has needed another medical practice for awhile now,” Jones said. “Physicians and nurse practitioners in town have been overwhelmed the last four or five years.”

Jones said she wants the residents of Pike County to know they don’t have to travel to Montgomery or Dothan to get the care they need.

“We want to make everyone aware that we can take care of everything right here in Troy,” she emphasized. “We can see you for your primary (care) needs and we have specialists coming from out of town regularly, so you don’t have to drive 50 or 60 miles because you can see the same (specialists) right here as if you went to Montgomery or anywhere else.”

Jones also said that she wanted the women in the area to know that TRMC has a state-of-the-art mammogram machine.

“We have a state-of-the-art machine and I’ve really never seen one so nice,” she said. “The office space is very relaxing and inviting and private. I want people to feel confident to be able to make Troy their healthcare home and know that everything can be taken care of right here.”

TRMC CEO Rick Smith echoed Jones’ feelings about TRMC being the home for residents looking for healthcare, especially those that don’t currently have one.

“We want to take care of your basic healthcare needs right here,” he said. “There is a difference between that and episodic care when you bounce into an urgent care or bounce into an emergency room.

“What we are trying to recreate here is that medical home, so that you have a relationship with your provider. We have such a deficit here in Troy, and in Pike County in general, for basic primary care. So many physicians are simply overwhelmed and not accepting new patients in some instances. Having Rebecca come back and rejoin our family here will really fill a void we’ve had here for quite some time.”

Jones was emphatic about the need for everyone to have their “healthcare home” for primary care.

“One of the things I let my patients know is I don’t treat you based on your numbers and a ratio,” she said. “I don’t treat you based on how 1,000 people looked, I treat you based on how you looked.

“The only way I can do that is if I get to know you. You may come in and on your first visit we’ll do labs, talk about concerns you may have, talk about things like preventative medicines and then I’ll follow up and I like to see how you’ve changed or how you stayed the same. So, when we see you in two years from now, and I’m looking at labs, we can see if there are changes that we may need to do some investigating on. It’s very important to have a healthcare home so that someone can look at you as a whole person and not just get glimpses of you. If I can catch a subtle change along the way we may be able to prevent something bigger in the future.”

Jones is already accepting new patients along with walk-ins, as well. Anyone interested in becoming a patient can call the office, at (334) 670-5022 or visit the clinic in-person at 1320 Highway 231 South Suite 1 on the campus of TRMC.