WYOMING — Dr. Fariba Modares, the primary care provider for Geisinger-Wyoming, will take a new role as an inpatient physician within the Geisinger Health System.
That leaves Geisinger-Wyoming without a primary care physician. Because of the change, the facility located at 389 Wyoming Ave., Wyoming, will close on Aug. 14.
Within the facility, Modares and physician assistant Brett Stemrich have been treating patients. Stemrich will relocate to Geisinger-Moosic and Geisinger-Hazleton. Stemrich graduated from King’s College’s Physician Assistant program in 2009.
Within the last several weeks, Modares’ patients began to receive notification about the closing of the facility. According to a statement released by Public Relations and Marketing Specialist for Geisinger Health System Therese Pramick, all of the patients have been notified about the change.
The statement also said many of the patients have already started the process of relocating to another facility. In Greater Pittston, Geisinger currently offers two other clinics with a new one of the way.
The Geisinger locations at 57 N. Main St. 457 N. Main St., Pittston, are currently accepting Modares’ patients. However, in September, the new Geisinger location at 42 N. Main St. will open. The two current Geisinger facilities in Pittston will transfer to the new location.
In June 2014 Geisinger announced it would be constructing a 17,000-square-foot, $9.4 million Geisinger Community Practice building on the site of an old parking lot, which is right across the street from the existing Geisinger clinic. The building will double Geisinger’s size in the community.
Parking has been an issue at the current Geisinger locations. The new building will have the ground floor and the first floor dedicated to just parking.
Pramick said Geisinger Health System owns the building on Wyoming Avenue, but there are no plans as to what will happen with it.
For more than a decade, Modares has worked out of the Geisinger-Wyoming clinic and will now make her transition within the Geisinger Health System. She is a 1989 of the Tehran University Medial School in Iran. She finished her residency at Georgetown University Medical School in 1994.
Modares did her Pulmonary Disease fellowship at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre.
