“I look forward to the challenging work that is coming and the reward of seeing the health and productivity of a
community evolve and improve.” – Dr. Jason Spurling,
Medical Director of Primary Care, Ozarks Healthcare
For nearly two decades, Ozarks Family
Care has been a fixture in the West Plains community, providing primary care and wellness services. Roush founded the firm with Dr. Jason Spurling, the clinic’s prac- tice manager, in 2004 with the intent of delivering the utmost in patient-centered care and customer service. “Dr. Roush and I were both in residency
together at Cox in Springfield and we grad- uated together,” Spurling said. “This is actu- ally his hometown and he recruited me back here. We evaluated that there definitely was a need; this was a health provider shortage area in the state, and they had a few doctors who had just retired. They definitely had a shortage of primary care providers.” Like many ventures, the family practice clinic had its share of doubters that it would last very long. But the two physicians pro- ceeded anyway, convinced that if they built their clinic on the medical model they had in mind. the people would find them. “We had a lot of people who didn’t feel
like we would be successful here,” Spurling said. “Quite frankly, we felt like if we did it we had to do it for the right reasons and if we did that, it would all work out. We prayed about it a lot and we felt like God opened a lot of doors for us in getting start- ed and we just kind of kept that our focus. This is kind of like a ministry for us as much as anything and we’ve in turn been really blessed by it.” The founders’ dual foundational strategy of strictly managing overhead costs while
splurging on customer service and person- al attention has held up over the years. In fact, it was so well-received it led to expan- sion considerably sooner than forecast. “It definitely grew much faster than we
expected,” Spurling said. “A normal ramp- up would be four to five years. We were full within the first two to three years.” Spurling said the clinic has never even
actively looked for additional physicians but have been blessed by providers who shared their same philosophy finding them. “We did bring in a couple other phy- sicians through the years, individuals who had done some rotations with us in residency and who liked what we did,” Spurling said. “They had similar values and similar feelings towards health and the right way to take care of patients. We mutually agreed they fit in well from that standpoint.”
Over its long and fruitful practice, now known as Ozarks Healthcare Family Care, the clinic grew from the original partners to include four physicians, two family nurse practitioners and a support staff of eight. Along the way, the clinic developed a mutually positive working relationship with Ozarks Healthcare as well. “We’ve always had a good working re- lationship with the hospital and working over there in the hospital setting and in the OB unit as well,” Spurling said. “We’ve had a lot of interactions over the years and the hospital was very supportive of us when we got started as well.
12 | OZARKS HEALTHCARE | FALL/WINTER 2022
“Ozarks Healthcare has done a lot to bring in a lot of good specialists and im- prove their facilities and they’ve brought in some other people who have really made some positive changes to help the commu- nity as a whole.” Ozark Family Care wasn’t necessarily looking to join forces with anybody, Spurling said, but when Ozarks Healthcare leader- ship broached the idea last year, it brought with it too many potential benefits to ignore.
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