During the summer of 2024, catastrophic floods swept through Northwest Iowa, causing severe damage to many businesses, including Crown Clinic in Spencer, IA. Nurse practitioners Peyton Hantelman and Jay Downing were among those affected.
Amid the growing healthcare shortage in the area, Peyton and Jay recognized the urgent need to act. Many of their longtime patients had lost access to their primary care providers and were urgently seeking help. In response, Peyton and Jay teamed up and began working quickly to establish a new clinic.
The anticipation leading up to the clinic’s opening grew each day as Peyton and Jay made progress toward opening. Even though they did not share much about the specifics of the clinic, the community expressed great excitement about the future of PHN. “On our end, everything was happening quickly, and it was exciting to see things coming together. It was even more exciting to see this reciprocated in the community when running into a previous patient or hearing conversations out and about,” said Peyton and Jay.
Priority Health Northwest (PHN) opened on December 2, 2024, around five short months after the floods. The clinic is a family practice and acute care clinic that strives to enhance the lives of its patients by providing convenient, high-quality, personalized healthcare services for the entire family. PHN values health maintenance and disease prevention while offering acute care and chronic disease management. Owned by Jay and Pam Downing, along with Cody and Peyton Hantelman, PHN is built on a strong family foundation.
During the five months following the floods, Peyton and Jay sought guidance from Larry Wajda, Regional Director of the Northwest Iowa SBDC, and relied on support from their families and the PHN team as they worked toward the clinic’s opening. They successfully located and purchased a new building free from flood damage, acquired the necessary equipment and furnishings, and re-established accounts and credentials with insurance companies.
The SBA also played a pivotal role during this time. Peyton and Jay met numerous times with Larry Wajda to create plans and projections on receiving financing from the SBA.
When reflecting on their experience with the SBA and SBDC, the PHN team says, “We are so very thankful for the involvement and guidance that was provided for us, or we would not have been able to make our dreams a reality. Larry was a wealth of knowledge and helped us to plan and project our future in the clinic. He was also easy to reach and quick to provide assistance with all of our questions along the way. He continues to be a valuable resource for us in business now as well.”
PHN works to stand out as a one-of-a-kind clinic. “We have the most caring, compassionate staff that meet all our patients with a smile right at the front door. Our providers are personable and value shared decision-making so that the patients are always well-heard and understood. We take the extra steps to complete tasks and coordinate healthcare in a timely manner, and we collaborate with other healthcare systems in the area to give our patients access to everything they may need as a part of their healthcare journey,” said the PHN team.
The clinic prides itself on accepting patients of all ages, assisting with chronic, acute, family, and individual needs, and accepting all major insurances. With walk-in appointments and extended office hours available, PHN is able to provide high-quality healthcare for its community.
In-house, PHN has the ability to run several labs and perform x-rays to deliver timely results to patients. Each provider at PHN brings individual specialties and combines collective experience in various areas to provide the best comprehensive care possible. In addition, having both a male and female provider/owner in-house helps meet patient preferences.
Seeing patients return to their primary care providers at PHN and express joy in reconnecting with familiar faces has been incredibly rewarding for the team. The providers have been able to pick up where they left off with patients before the floods and continue providing the vital care they need.
When reflecting on their experience of starting a business, the PHN team emphasized the many different steps they had to take. “We realized quickly that it really is one step forward and two steps back at times, but we worked diligently to return paperwork and file documents as soon as possible to become established. We were very relieved when many of these start-up things were completed and we could turn our focus more to the medical aspect that we know and love.”
Looking to the future, PHN plans to continue expanding and growing its customer base to help as many people as possible. They hope to see the clinic flourish and add more providers, opening more job opportunities for rural healthcare. “We want to keep the family-business feel and the small, independently owned clinic morale as this is what sets us apart from other area clinics or healthcare systems,” said the PHN team.
Priority Health Northwest’s advice to aspiring business owners: “Take the risk. Without chasing a dream and taking a risk, there is no reward. Also, there is never growth within your comfort zone. Business startups, especially to these lengths, and the expenses involved, considering it is a medical clinic, are very intimidating. Finding a business partner with common goals and visions is definitely helpful, and networking is crucial. Meeting one single person could change your entire life.”