Patients may not notice, but the Park City Clinic will soon be absorbed into the Intermountain Healthcare system. The long-standing healthcare clinic sought out a partnership for its two locations in Bonanza Park and Round Valley Drive as an effort to change the way it does business.

"With the future changes coming in healthcare, the Park City Clinic decided over the next couple of years we needed to align ourselves with a larger medical organization," said Bill Pidwell, a physician at the clinic and the CFO. "We decided to start that process sooner rather than later."

The Park City Clinic started discussions with Intermountain Healthcare and three other large health organizations, settling on the Intermountain system to create an Accountable Care Organization, or ACO. An ACO is a reformed healthcare model that works with a group of patients aligned with a large hospital organization to drive down total medical costs.

The clinic will still accept all the current forms of insurance, with relatively little change expected for the patients.

"As far as patients go, we don’t expect them to see much of any change," Pidwell said. "We’ll continue to operate the clinic with the same providers, same hours, same location. We don’t anticipate anything negative for the patients with this, more a seamless transition."

The Intermountain Healthcare system has taken on several small clinics like the one in Park City over the past few months and expects there to be more in the future, although not any in Park City for the time being.

"We’re very excited about the potential to partner up with the Park City Healthcare, and have them become a part of Intermountain," said Scott Roberson, the Intermountain Healthcare Director of Operations. "For us, they bring years of experience to the table."

One major improvement patients can expect is the transfer of all medical files into an online format, which will improve the speed and accuracy of care, Pidwell said.

While plans for the Bonanza Park area are still underway developer Mark Fisher hopes to rebuild several properties in the area the new partnership would not have any effect on the clinic leasing space from Fisher.

"The long term plan is that once building starts, we would rebuild the clinic," Pidwell said. "I foresee that still happening."