Earl Reed literally bet the farm on his new business venture, a franchise of Doctors Express, a chain of urgent-care clinics with roots in Baltimore that’s trying to expand across the country. But he feels good about his chances of making his farm back — and more.

Reed, a 67-year-old Air Force veteran and former government contractor, leveraged his share of a family farm in Georgia to obtain a small business loan three years ago. He opened up his Mount Vernon location April 1, the second Doctors Express location in Northern Virginia. (Keith Pellicano opened one in Woodbridge in January.)

The business model is straightforward: a walk-in clinic that can handle common illnesses, urgent but non-life threatening injuries and occupational health matters, while accepting insurance and providing basic X-ray and lab services. It’s more than a bare bones retail clinic, but less than a high-overhead emergency room.

And the market opportunity is also appealing: Waiting lists at a traditional physician private practice can stretch for weeks or months — if the doctor is taking new patients at all — and emergency rooms are often clogged with long lines.

Reed and Doctors Express founder Scott Burger aren’t alone in recognizing the trend. Reed’s franchise, on Richmond Highway in Mount Vernon, is the 33rd overall, and walk-in clinics are a surging business trend in Northern Virginia.

But what Reed believes makes his franchise especially appealing is location: close to Fort Belvoir, moderate- to high-income professionals and a working class immigrant community. His three biggest revenue streams will be Medicare, the military TriCare program and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, he projects.

Read more: In Mount Vernon, another player in the walk-in clinic business | Washington Business Journal

“The demographics here are pretty promising,” Reed says.

To boot, the immediate neighborhood is an exception to the surging popularity of walk-in clinics, perhaps because of its proximity to Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. “Inova does not have a good reputation for competition,” he says, though he doesn't consider himself in direct competition with the health care giant.

With a grand opening event on Friday, the franchise is still developing its market. But, Reed says, he’s confident and hinted at more franchises. Across the country, Doctors Express wants to open 60 more locations before the end of the year.

“This is going to become the McDonald’s of urgent care,” Reed says.

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Mothers who come home from work to children with running noses and fever, will have an alternative to the emergency room or getting up at O-Dark-Hundred to make an appointment with the local pediatrician for the next morning.

Doctors Express Mount Vernon is opening this month on Richmond Highway. It will open at 8 a.m. seven days a week and close at 8 p.m., except for Saturday and Sunday, when it will close at 6 p.m.

A franchised operation with 32 other locations, Doctors Express ensures that patients will always see a board-certified doctor and all nurses and x-ray technicians are licensed professionals. With digital x-ray equipment on-site, patients take a CD copy of their x-rays with them — and records are sent directly to their doctors.

The on-site laboratory meets CLIA standards and it can provide the majority of tests required by urgent care patients while they wait. Doctors Express provides Occupational Health services for employees and employers, as well as travel medicine and vaccination.

The person behind this new venture is Earl Reed. A long-time resident of Mount Vernon, Reed has served as a fighter pilot, opened a chain of drugstores in Moscow and, as a government contractor, managed a $22 billion budget in Saudi Arabia.

"I know how to run a business," said Reed, who looked at several other franchising operations before he decided on Doctors Express. "I expect to begin receiving patients in March and have a highly public grand opening in early April. I really want to educate the Potomac side on what an urgent care clinic really is. It’s not just a ‘sniffle clinic’ but instead a complementary facility to the local emergency room and primary physician — not a competitor. Working moms can get in and out in less than an hour and experience a ‘one-stop shop’ — leaving with full laboratory work, x-rays if needed and prescriptions rather than having to wait elsewhere.

"This will be a valuable, complementary asset to our community. I have one full-time, highly-experienced ER physician and four part timers committed to us at this point."

Reed is currently in the process of getting credentialed (accepted) by the major insurance carriers in the area. This is a time-consuming process but eventually they will be able to accept almost all health insurance carriers for treatment.

John M. Shiver, coordinator of undergraduate programs, Department of Health Administration and Policy at George Mason University, said, "This is conventional medicine focused on the needs of the customer. It is equivalent to the care you get at an emergency room. It’s a great place for kids who need care after school."

Shiver, who is an expert in the field of urgent care, went on to say that 66 percent of patients who visit the emergency room are not experiencing an emergency situation. They just need to see a doctor outside of office hours.

Reed has some background in medicine; he was a pre-med student at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. He planned to go to medical school but it competed with his dream of becoming a fighter pilot that he had since he was in third grade.

"Once they gave me the keys to an F-4, why would I want to go to medical school?" said Reed. "I was a career fighter pilot in the US Air Force; I flew F-4s and F-15s and had two tours in Viet Nam, flying over 400 combat missions."

After 20 years in the Air Force, Reed retired as a colonel and became a program manager in the Pentagon for the Royal Saudi Air Force Foreign Military Sales Program. They needed an F-15 pilot with prior program management experience.

He then formed a 50-50 joint venture with four female PhD Russian pharmacists who were the managers of 13 state (City of Moscow)-owned pharmacies inside Moscow. They had the stores but no products after the collapse of the USSR.

Reed said, "My American partner and I arranged procurement and delivery of pharmacy stocks for the stores from Bulgaria and America. I did this for about three years until I became engaged in the conversion of the Russian anthrax factory in Kazakhstan into a pharmaceutical plant under contract to the U.S. government as part of the Nunn-Lugar, swords into plow shares program for their weapons of mass destruction conversion."

A few years ago, he decided that he needed a more lucrative plan for retirement. He started researching franchising operations, eliminating ones that involved food or retail. Out of five plans presented to him by a broker, he liked this one best.

With that, he started searching for financing. He was approved for a Veteran’s Expedited Loan — 18 months later.

"I started the SBA loan process in August 2009, expecting to close no later than December, 2009," said Reed. "Through no particular element’s fault, I just barely got it closed in December 2010 as part of the President’s stimulus plan. Thank God as a veteran, I got the accelerated ‘Patriot’s Express Plan.’"

Reed has been married to Dottie for 41 years. They met in kindergarten and grew up in the same small town in the panhandle of Florida (same high school class). She just retired as a kindergarten teacher after 24 years at Grace Episcopal School in Old Town. They are long-time members of Aldersgate United Methodist Church and have two grown children, Jennifer Reed, 33, and John (Sheff) Reed, 32, – both living in this area.

Doctors Express Mount Vernon is located at 7609-B Richmond Highway. Phone number is 703-598-2544. Visit www.doctorsexpress.com/mountvernon for more information.

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