URGENT CARE WITH A TWIST

A longtime Westchester County businesswoman with a familiar surname in county real estate development is expanding her rehabilitation and therapy clinic to launch a "boutique-style" medical urgent care center in downtown White Plains.

Gina Cappelli said she plans a soft opening in January of Forme Urgent Care and Wellness at 7-11 S. Broadway in an 11,300-square-foot space formerly leased by White Plains city agencies. The state Health Department-licensed business will succeed Cappelli's Forme Rehabilitation Inc., which relocated from 1075 Central Park Ave. in Scarsdale. A second Forme Rehabilitation clinic has operated in Eastchester since 2003.

Cappelli, the sister of Valhalla-based real estate developer Louis R. Cappelli, said Forme will offer boutique-style medical services that combines walk-in care and specialty medicine under one roof. She has added podiatry, radiology and outpatient surgery services to her business this year and plans to operate an on-site blood laboratory. She said she plans to hire medical specialists in pulmonology, urology, vascular, endocrinology, pain management, dermatology and cosmetics and employ registered dieticians and certified psychologists.

"I've always believed that the urgent care model, if run correctly, would be an amazing business," Cappelli said. "People are looking for quality of care and in our busy lives they want it now. They don't want to wait a week or two to see their doctor or a specialist." Forme will provide "more personalized care," she said.

At Forme Urgent Care, "For any patient that has a primary care doctor or specialist, all the information will be sent directly to the doctor through our HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant electronic medical record software, closing the loop on patient care," Cappelli said.

"We have a standard under hospital law that we have to live up to. You're getting your practice and regulation monitored by the Department of Health...We're under the same standards as hospitals," she said.

Cappelli is the daughter of another well-known businessman and developer in Westchester, the late Luca A. Cappelli Jr., founder of Cappelli Development. She said her decision to take on the challenge of growing her business through licensed urgent care followed the deaths of her father and her mother Concetta in 2011 and 2012. The new company combines both her father's business mind and her mother's nurturing side, she said.

"My father's favorite saying was, 'You only know what you know. You don't know what you don't know. So listen and learn from others that have already been where you are and have already made their mistakes." Cappelli, who has no professional medical background or expertise, heeded that advice when hiring consultants for her business.

Forme Urgent Care and Wellness is a New York state-certified woman-owned business enterprise. Cappelli said she is applying for national recognition as a woman business owner to qualify for federal funding.