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FROM STAFF REPORTS

VINCENT – Longtime Pell City family medicine physician, Dr. Rock Helms, officially opened Helms Health Care, a new, private practice in Vincent on Thursday, March 27 with a grand opening celebration and tour of the newly renovated clinic.

The move to Vincent comes after Helms left Complete Health-Pell City in March. Helms co-founded Northside Medical Associates in Pell City in 2001, growing it to 20 providers, 200 employees and six locations. It later merged with Complete Health, a Florida-based company.

Helms describes his new clinic as “a concierge-type practice for everybody—when you call, you get a human. When you want to be seen, you can be seen right away. We prefer appointments, but it’s not a mandate.”

Helms’ vision is for patients to have the ability to get any answers they need easily, hoping to take away some of the difficulty that comes with going to a medical practice.

“(I want there to be) easy access to their doctor or nurse practitioner for medication refills, questions about test results or a question about referrals to a specialist,” Helms said. “Typically, there are too many barriers to achieve that. I want to break those barriers down.” 

Helms says he envisions the practice as one where the doctor-patient relationship is at the center, and one where the doctor knows the patients personally and is deeply invested in their well-being, giving the doctor more knowledge of the patient’s history and needs.

“Helms Healthcare strives to leverage the personal delivery of medicine with the cutting-edge technologies to better serve those in his care,” Helms said.

The offerings that Helms Healthcare provides are: 

• Telehealth: Virtual consultations so patients can connect with their doctors from the comfort of their homes, eliminating the need for unnecessary travel and wait times
• Electronic Health Records: Comprehensive and easily accessible health records for seamless and coordinated care
• Mobile Health Applications: Apps that enable health metrics tracking, scheduling appointments and communicating with their providers more easily

Helms Healthcare is fully staffed. Helms is the primary care and family medicine doctor, while DaKota Nichols and Jonathan Windham are the nurse practitioners. A clinical nurse specialist with 20 years’ experience, a biller and coder with 25 years in the field, a receptionist, laboratory technician and an X-ray technician round out the medical team.

Most insurance is accepted along with Medicare and Medicaid for adults.

Helms, a 1996 graduate of University of South Alabama Medical School, began practicing medicine in Pell City in 1999. 

“We are happy to be in Vincent,” Helms said. “It is a welcoming city, and everyone has been helping us get started. We hope to have a long-term relationship here, but the ultimate goal is going back to Pell City.”