Coastal Business | New urgent care center coming to Myrtle Beach
From wire reports
Coastal Business
MYRTLE BEACH
New urgent care center coming to Myrtle Beach
Doctors Express, a company that has urgent care centers throughout the country, plans to open its first medical center in Myrtle Beach next year.
The company recently opened a urgent care center in Charleston and is on schedule to open several others throughout the state in the fall.
Doctors Express offers walk-in care for patients that need to be seen urgently but don't have life threatening conditions, which would require a trip to the hospital.
The company is looking for local doctors and businesses to partner with in opening a local clinic.
Ensuring that patients are seen quickly and not kept waiting is one of the company's focuses and the average wait time at existing facilities is between 15 and 20 minutes.
"We think that we are definitely a low-cost alternative to the emergency room and we pride ourselves in getting our patients in and back out," said Doug Daniel, the master developer for Doctors Express in Georgia and South Carolina.
SOUTH CAROLINA
S.C. court strikes down SCE&G rate hike for fund
South Carolina's highest court said Monday that South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. customers should not have to pay for a contingency fund to cover unexpected costs at two nuclear reactors the company is building.
The state Supreme Court said the Public Service Commission overstepped its authority when it approved the contingency fund as part of an overall rate increase to help SCE&G recoup the financing costs of the $10 billion project in Jenkinsville just north of Columbia.
A group of industrial power users challenged the $438 million set aside for construction contingencies as a slush fund with no guarantee that the money would be spent wisely.
The court agreed, saying the law that allows companies to recoup the cost of building new power plants does not expressly include contingency costs as a recoverable expense.
Last year, regulators said the company could raise electricity rates an average of 2.5 percent a year for 10 years, but increases still have to go through a review process every year.
So far, no contingency expenses have been included in the annual rate increases approved, said Dukes Scott, executive director of the Office of Regulatory Staff - the agency that represents the public in rate cases.
SCE&G spokeswoman Rhonda O'Banion said the ruling simply changes the process for getting costs approved. The company can still recover unexpected expenses as long as they are considered prudent.
SCE&G is building the reactors with state-owned utility Santee Cooper. The two companies already operate one nuclear reactor at the site.