Albert Morales has been a family nurse practitioner for the past five years, and now he’s bringing his expertise to his neighborhood in Rio Rancho.

Morales opened I Am Wellness Acute Care & Walk-in Clinic in March. He is the owner and medical director of the hybrid office that offers urgent care services and primary care services.

Albert Morales is the owner and medical director at I Am Wellness.

Morales, who lives near the office located at 2345 Southern Blvd. SE Ste B11, wants to bring a more personal touch to health care.

“I’m here to help out anybody who needs help finding a primary, finding urgent care services,” Morales said. “I know that wait times in any other larger offices can be rather long. Some patients are having to either go to the emergency room and wait up to 14 hours to be seen or see a doctor via telemedicine, so a lot of things are being missed. And so I’m here, I’m locally based and it’s a small office, so I want people to know I’m here for them.”

I Am Wellness takes the majority of health insurances and offers many services.

“We do urgent care. So anything acute like migraines, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,” Morales said. “Abdominal pain, as well as primaries. In house we can do some labs and point-of-care testing to include COVID, flu, mono, urinary tract infections. We treat a large array of symptoms.”

Morales wants I Am Wellness to be more about providing care to patients instead of the corporate structure of many bigger practices, which is driving good doctors away.

“I think that in health care, a lot of providers are burnt out by the larger corporations,” Morales said. “They have timelines on what we have to meet as far as how many patient we see. So patient volume is an issue as well. I think they’re just under appreciated. And so a lot of them are branching out to their own offices where they can focus on patient safety.”

I Am Wellness is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Appointments can be made by calling 505-524-0710. Walk-ins are also accepted.