ONEIDA | University of Tennessee Medical Center is preparing to open its first specialist clinic in Scott County. The office will be located in the long-abandoned medical facility between Plateau Electric Cooperative and the Scott County Food Court on Alberta Street in south Oneida.
Construction crews have been renovating the 8,000 sq. ft. building for several weeks. It is owned by M&O Oneida LLC. While UT Medical Center has not announced the new clinic, signage went up on the facility this week, indicating that the new office will be the home of University Midwives and UT Rheumatology Associates.
University Midwives is part of UTMC’s Center for Women & Infants. It offers well-woman care, pregnancy and postpartum care, and labor and birth services. It currently has offices at UTMC’s main location on Alcoa Highway in Knoxville, as well as at the Regional Health Center in Halls, the Kim Health Clinic on Chapman Highway in south Knoxville, and at Turkey Creek.
UT Rheumatology Associates offers diagnosis and treatment for a range of systemic autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, scleroderma, osteoporosis, and more.
Scott County Mayor Jerried Jeffers said UTMC first approached him soon after he took office in 2022 to inquire about support for a medical facility in the local community.
“I told them, please send us specialists … rheumatologist, cardiologist, it doesn’t matter what,” Jeffers said. “We just need something so our people don’t have to drive out-of-town.”
The new clinic being opened by UTMC comes amid a relative boom of health care growth in Scott County. Big South Fork Medical Center held a grand-opening for the county’s first wound care clinic earlier this week, and Huntsville Post-Acute & Rehabilitation Center has announced an in-patient dialysis center that is expected to open next year. Mountain People’s Health Councils Inc. just completed a new diagnostic center in Oneida, and is planning a new medical clinic in Huntsville.
“I’m very excited (about the new UT medical office),” Jeffers said. “I hope more will come of it. I’m hoping for dermatology. But if this is all they’ve got, I’m tickled with that. It’ll be a game-changer.”
Jeffers said the UT Medical Center brand inspires confidence.
“It’s a nice confidence-builder for people just to have that sign out there,” he said.
Jeffers added that once UTMC began exploring its options in Scott County, it considered the local population and the health care offerings already here to decide what model would work best and what services it could provide.