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Mobile Medical Care Inc. has opened its first primary care clinic in the upcounty, providing easier access to medical services to low-income and uninsured patients in the rapidly growing region.

The MobileMed Primary Care Clinic began seeing patients at its offices in the Shady Grove Adventist Medical Center in Germantown on Sept. 2 but marked its official opening Monday night.

"Upper Montgomery remains the most underserved area in the county in terms of care for people who are uninsured," said Bob Spector, MobileMed's executive director. MobileMed operates 22 other nonprofit primary care clinics in the county, he said. Except for two clinics in Gaithersburg, the facilities are all downcounty.

The clinic plans to reach out to residents in the more rural parts of the upcounty by sending its mobile units to churches and other community gathering places, Spector said. It has not yet been determined where the mobile units will visit. Doctors will do routine testing and bring patients into the MobileMed network by keeping their files on record and scheduling regular appointments, he said.

"They need to get health care where they live and work, preferably from people in their community," he said.

The 3,000-square-foot clinic includes six exam rooms, a pharmacy and meeting space. The facility hosted its first weekly Korean clinic Friday afternoon, and it plans on reaching out to the Hispanic and Chinese communities as well.

"What's unique here is it's really part of something bigger," Spector said. "It's more than a place to go see a doctor. It's a way of getting a variety of services not available elsewhere."

The clinic will provide regular medical care, such as routine physicals, to keep uninsured and low-income residents out of the emergency room. Patients will be sent to other medical facilities for more specialized services, such as lab work, but they will remain under the watch of MobileMed's doctors.

MobileMed has partnered with state and local agencies and other health care providers on the clinic, including Capital Technical Information Surveys Inc., the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission, Montgomery County, Adventist HealthCare and Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, according to Spector.

The clinic hopes to serve 1,000 people in its first year, said Dennis Hansen, president of Shady Grove Adventist Hospital.

There are an estimated 80,000 uninsured patients in Montgomery County, and all of the clinics in the county combined serve about 17,000 a year, according to Dr. James Ronan, medical director at the nonprofit Mercy Health Clinic, which moved from Germantown to a larger space in Gaithersburg in May.

"The way I see it, the need is so great that we'd welcome the help," Ronan said. Mercy Health Clinic's waiting list usually averages six weeks, he said.

"There's more people who need help than we can help," Ronan said. "Every clinic is overwhelmed."

The MobileMed Primary Care Clinic is located on the third floor of the Shady Grove Adventist Medical Center, 19735 Germantown Road, Germantown. The clinic is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. For more information, call 301-493-2400 and ask for the upcounty clinic.