SALINA, N.Y. — Within 100 days of opening, Caring Family Health Nurse Practitioners PLLC gained a roster of more than 500 patients, reaffirming co-owner Bikash Regmi’s belief that the area needed a new option for primary care.
Regmi and his wife, Kumari Regmi, opened the medical practice on Sept. 6 at 6846 Buckley Road, Suite 2, in the town of Salina, several years after they first began thinking about having their own practice.
Both are originally from the nation of Bhutan, and Regmi knew he wanted to go into health care from a young age after watching people die in refugee camps in Nepal due to a lack of basic health care. He and his wife, who came to the U.S. more than a decade ago, are both nurse practitioners.
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Regmi previously worked for Mohawk Valley Health System and UnitedHealthcare, but it was a question from a friend that got him thinking about having his own practice. The friend simply asked if Regmi knew of a primary care doctor that was accepting new patients.
“I thought, there is a need,” Regmi recalls. His research showed that there are about 92 providers for every 100,000 residents in Onondaga County. If that alone didn’t highlight the need for more providers, finding a doctor is also compounded by whether that office accepts the patient’s insurance or is even accepting new patients, he adds.
That frustration was only compounded during the pandemic, when many people stopped going to their primary-care provider. “Now they have an issue, but find it hard to get in,” he says. “These are the people now realizing they need to get back to their health.”
Now they have a new option at Caring Family Health, which accepts most insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare, and is accepting new patients.
Caring Family Health leases 2,900 square feet from Nephrology Hypertension Associates of CNY. The space offers five exam rooms, two provider offices, a nursing station, lab room/storage area, and waiting room. The practice employs four besides the Regmis, including an office manager, nurse, medical assistant, and front desk associate.
Regmi was surprised by the response in the practice’s first 100 days. “I didn’t expect this face pace,” he says, noting the practice is steadily booked out about two weeks. Regmi has not done much in the way of marketing, but word of mouth is steadily generating new patients.
The growing patient list at Caring Family Health results from more than just being available, he notes. “We spend a lot of time talking to the patient,” he says. “We listen to the problem, and that kind of makes us unique.” Caring Family Health also provides continuity of care, meaning the patients can see the same practitioner each time they visit.
Factoring that each nurse practitioner can handle about 1,200 patients, Regmi is already thinking about adding a third practitioner within the next year.
“This will grow into a bigger practice,” he says. “We’re getting lots of love from the community, and we want to give back to the community with compassionate care.”
Both Bikash and Kumari Regmi also serve as adjunct faculty members at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Marcy. Bikash currently serves on the board of directors for Child Care Solutions. He previously served on the boards for Hospice & Palliative Care in New Hartford, St. Elizabeth College of Nursing in Utica, and the Bhutanese Community in Syracuse. Kumari Regmi previously contributed as an advocate for low-income and at-risk children through the Thea Bowman House in Utica.
They established the Bikash & Kumari Regmi Scholarship Program that supports high school or college students seeking a career in the medical field.
