GREENE COUNTY
Athens Orthopedic Clinic (AOC) hosted a groundbreaking ceremony on April 21, at the site of a new Greensboro clinical office it’s building on Lake Country Drive, across from Singleton Marine on Hwy 44.
The new 23,600-square-foot facility will include space for office visits, onsite physical therapy, and hand therapy, with more services planned as the practice gets established.
“Our plan is to grow with the community. Obviously, we know that Greene County is growing, and the surrounding counties are growing, so our plan is to continue to expand our facilities and services and match our abilities with what’s happening here at the same time,” AOC Chief Executive Officer Kay Elliott said shortly after tossing a traditional, ceremonial shovelful of dirt.
Currently, AOC leases space on Cowles Clinic Way, behind Publix, but is limited in the number of practitioners and services it can house. Weather permitting, construction of the new facility should be completed within a year, Elliott said.
“Right now, physical therapy has about 3,000 square feet and this will give them a little more than double that size, so we can not only add more therapists and therapy but also double our clinic space as well,” he said.
“And doubling our clinic space will allow us to bring more doctors down, more services down. We currently have total joint sports medicine in hand right here, and not now, but in the future we can add spine, foot, and ankle, too. There are other things that we have and can bring down here as well.”
Dr. Michael Shuler, an AOC orthopedic surgeon who specializes in upper extremity and hand surgery, said he’s looking forward to having “a permanent home where people can know kind of where we are.”
Like Elliott, Shuler said he anticipates AOC significantly expanding what it provides to the community.
“Certainly, I think this is an area that they get frustrated having to drive to Athens or drive to Atlanta for service,” he pointed out. “So yes, we’re hoping to provide a lot more opportunity for care close to home. And I mean, we’ll be able to do a lot more from a therapy standpoint, be able to provide a lot more care that otherwise we’re not able to do in the confined spaces that we have right now.
“Also, just the clinic space will be much nicer and then again, we’ll be able to bring a lot more physicians, either permanently or from Athens to offer a full line of care," Shuler continued. "We’re already doing sports medicine and joints, but hopefully, we’ll be able to expand to foot-and-ankle, spine, all those different things that we haven’t been able to really fit in here before.”