Rockwood Clinic PS, the Community Health Systems-owned doctors group here, plans to open a new specialty clinic next month across the street from Valley Hospital & Medical Center.

To be called Rockwood Valley Specialty Center, the office will be located at 1415 N. Houk, and is expected to open Nov. 1. The 4,000-square-foot clinic will be staffed full time by an orthopedic specialist and a podiatrist, as well as five other doctors representing five other specialties, who will rotate at the clinic during different days of the week, says Tom Metzger, one of three vice presidents of operations for Rockwood.

The rotating doctors, who specialize in cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, nephrology, and anti-coagulation, respectively, will rotate between the new Valley center and Rockwood's other Spokane clinics, he says. All of the doctors at the new center will share the same reception, waiting area, and nurses stations, but the full-time doctors will be permanently located on one side of the building, and the five rotating doctors will share the other half of the building, he says.

Metzger says the new center also will offer laboratory and radiology services.

Rockwood opened another clinic late last month, just west and across the street from Valley Hospital, called Rockwood Vercler Clinic, at 1512 N. Vercler. That 2,400-square-foot clinic has two general surgeons and two ophthalmologists, he says.

He says Rockwood spent about $330,000 to remodel both spaces to accommodate the new clinics, and it is leasing the buildings, both of which had been vacant.

Metzger says plans for both of the new clinics were under way before Rockwood merged with CHS in June. He says most of the doctors who will work at the new clinics were working previously at Rockwood's other locations, though some are new to Rockwood.

"This was discussed before the CHS-Rockwood merger," he says. "We had demand for these services out in the Valley, and Rockwood wanted to move services closer to the patients."

Metzger says Rockwood already has met to discuss plans for the next phase of its growth in Spokane Valley.

"We are considering all options. There aren't many medical buildings out there that would be able to house us, so additional construction is certainly one of the options," he says.