Goshen Physicians to open new Wakarusa location for increased accessibility 

After housing a few doctors and an insurance agency, the property at 121 E Waterford St, Wakarusa, is undergoing renovations to become Goshen Physicians Family Medicine’s newest clinic. The existing 2,500-square-foot office is receiving exterior updates, new flooring, updated cabinetry, fresh paint, and other improvements to make it more inviting for patients once it opens its doors on Monday, June 16.

The Wakarusa office will offer services such as acute and chronic care management, DOT physicals, lab physicals, minor procedures, adult and pediatric preventive services, and non-obstetric women’s health.  This location will have a phlebotomy lab for quick and convenient blood draws. With many patients having previously made the trek from Wakarusa to Goshen Health’s Nappanee location, the new Wakarusa office and its services will allow patients to stay close to home and still receive quality care. 

“Patients want easy access to their doctors. We hear this over and over,” said Jon Yoder, vice president of Goshen Physicians at Goshen Health. “Patients want a good relationship with their doctors, and sometimes that gets lost when you’re thinking about larger clinics and larger cities. We’re really trying to get back to the basics of being present, easy to access, and quite honestly, close to home for many of our communities.”

Two physicians – Dr. Malinda Lasater, DO, and Dr. Tricia Foster, DO – will be working at Goshen Physician’s Wakarusa location. Dr. Lasater will be at Wakarusa full time, and Dr. Foster will spend time in both the Wakarusa and Nappanee locations. Having two physicians who are already established at the Nappanee location working at Wakarusa will make for a smooth transition, as many patients already know Lasater and Foster. Yoder believes that, since Foster lives in the Wakarusa community, her presence at the Wakarusa office will add a personal touch to the care provided there. 

“I think it’s really neat when you have physicians practicing in their home community. It brings something special when you can see your doctor in the clinic, but you can also see them walking down the sidewalk or in the local restaurant. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish for our community when we think about Goshen Health being a community healthcare provider,” Yoder said.

With Goshen Physicians Family Medicine Nappanee being nearby and offering more extensive services – such as X-rays, and specialty services – the Nappanee and Wakarusa locations follow Goshen Health’s hub-and-spoke model. The idea behind the hub-and-spoke model is to have larger locations with extensive services, like Nappanee, be the hub of a community, and smaller locations with limited services, like Wakarusa, be the spokes of a community. The spokes help Goshen Health extend throughout a community to make its services easily accessible. Adding the Wakarusa spoke to the Nappanee hub will improve Goshen Health’s accessibility in the greater Wa-Nee area.

“As we expand into smaller communities, we recognize that not every location can offer a full range of services,” Yoder explained. “By creating a strong connection with one of our fully equipped clinics, patients can still receive most of their care at our Wakarusa location and conveniently access additional services at our Nappanee clinic if needed. It’s all about making health care more accessible for our patients.”

For more information about Goshen Health and its strides toward accessibility, visit goshenhealth.com.