MarinHealth to Open New Multispecialty Clinic in Petaluma

MarinHealth is putting the final touches on a new multispecialty clinic that will open Dec. 3 in Petaluma, the Greenbrae-based health care system announced this week.

The 13,793-square-foot clinic, which includes 28 private exam rooms, will offer primary care and specialty services, including internal medicine, urology, urogynecology, OB-GYN and midwifery, spine care, orthopedics and cardiology. There also will be an imaging center for X-rays, ultrasounds and cardiac testing.

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Early next year, the clinic will add an urgent care center and pediatric services, according to MarinHealth.

MarinHealth’s existing clinic in Petaluma, at 104 Lynch Creek Way, will move to the new facility, which has been in the works for a while.

“We started formally talking about building this … multispecialty clinic about two and a half years ago,” said Dr. David Klein, CEO of MarinHealth.

The health care system invested about $8.2 million to refurbish the existing building into a clinic, Klein said. The building’s owner, he noted, paid for mechanical and other needed work.

The new clinic is located in the Washington Square shopping center, at 335 S. McDowell Blvd.

Jennifer Schaab, president of MarinHealth Medical Network, led the recruitment process for the new Petaluma clinic. She said there initially will be about 20 providers and 35 administrative staff, including medical assistants, ultrasound and cardiac technicians, and front office employees.

“A lot of my work has been personally working with the physicians and really deciding who's going to be traveling to Petaluma, or working with our recruiting team to place some of the primary care doctors there,” Schaab said.

MarinHealth has roughly 60 MarinHealth Medical Network clinics in the North Bay as part of its affiliation with UCSF Health. That alliance, in place since 2018, provides MarinHealth access to UCSF’s network of physicians and providers, as well as patients’ electronic medical records to ensure continuity of care.

Klein said a number of the doctors at the new Petaluma clinic, especially those who practice primary care, pediatrics and OB-GYN, will not move around, which is more common with subspecialty doctors.

“With primary care specialties, which really are the ones that integrate most with the community, we think it's important to have the same doctors (for) their patients,” he said.

Klein said he also sees a growing need for obstetrics care in Petaluma, especially in the absence of Petaluma Valley Hospital’s now-shuttered birthing center. While MarinHealth’s new clinic will not have a labor and delivery department, there will be increased options for OB-GYN and midwifery care.

“We've got some full-time obstetricians coming in that will be a big part of that practice, because I do believe there is a community need there,” he said.

Klein projects the Petaluma clinic to have about 25,000 provider-patient visits in the first year, with the potential to double that number in the second year.

And there are likely more MarinHealth clinics to come.

“We’re always looking to grow as the need and the demand is there because we've really become a North Bay enterprise,” Klein said. “So there’s no doubt that we will be expanding in the future.”