New Providers, Same Challenges: The Sacramento Mountains' Ongoing Healthcare Gaps and Solutions
Cloudcroft has limited healthcare options. Get to know one new provider and area-wide info with our update
For residents of rural New Mexico, access to consistent and comprehensive medical care has always been a challenge. Remote locations, limited providers, and a transient medical workforce have made continuity of care difficult.
Get to know your current healthcare options on the mountain with the Reader.
Nurse Practitioner Julia Eigenmann, a Texas Panhandle transplant who has called Sacramento, New Mexico, home for the past decade, is aiming to grow Cloudcroft’s healthcare possibilities.
Recently, Eigenmann opened Trestle Medical Services along the James Canyon Highway in Cloudcroft, offering a new option in rural Sacramento Mountain healthcare. The practice is housed in a sky-blue stucco building located next to the Cloudcroft fire station. Eigenmann intentionally chose the new location to improve accessibility.
“That way, it would be more accommodating to wheelchair users, patients with disabilities, and something larger in size. We could grow the practice so that more people could get healthcare services,” she said.
Trestle Medical Services is designed to fill a critical healthcare gap in the area. The practice provides preventative care, routine check-ups, and chronic disease management to patients ages two and up, with an emphasis on ensuring folks have consistent and ongoing medical support.
Preventative Care: A Long-Term Vision for Rural Health
Julia Eigenmann strongly believes in preventative medicine as the key to improving rural healthcare and reducing costs.
“The big thing that I want for people in this area is to have preventative care services, because if you can control some of the issues that lead to problems—just kind of nip them in the bud—it can save you tens of thousands of dollars,” she explained.
“If you can get your cholesterol under control, if you can get your blood pressure under control, it saves you from having to spend $80,000 at the hospital because you had a heart attack,” Eigenmann elaborates.
But beyond just offering care, she wants to bring stability to healthcare in the region. A common complaint among locals is that many providers only stay for a short period of time, making long-term health management difficult.
“My knowledge of the area, and the fact that I plan to stick around for… you know, decades. I know there are other providers in the area, and some of them are excellent. But the issue we’re running into over and over again is that you’ll go see a provider, and they may be wonderful or they may be terrible, but in six months, they’re not going to be there.”
“And when you’re trying to get your health in order, if a provider orders a test and then they’re not there to follow up on the results, you’re not going to make progress towards getting answers about your diagnosis,” says Eigenmann.
Eigenmann already has ties to the mountain community: before opening her own practice, Eigenmann worked at Terra Rosa Family Practice in Cloudcroft before the practice closed a few years ago. Julia and her husband, Jeff Eigenmann, share two young daughters, and Jeff serves on the Cloudcroft Schools Board of Education.
Her goal is simple: to provide continuity of care for rural patients—something many in the community have struggled to find.
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Filling the Gap for Local Families
When Bloom and Grow Pediatrics closed its doors in March of 2024, Cloudcroft's parents were left scrambling for pediatric care. The clinic, run by Nurse Practitioner Susan Bruce, had been a lifeline for families seeking regular medical attention for their children. With no dedicated pediatrician in town, many parents were forced to travel for basic healthcare needs.
To help bridge this gap, Cloudcroft Schools’ nurse Mandy Ross partnered with Goodside Health, a Texas-based company, to provide basic pediatric care services on campus. This partnership allows the school to administer strep, flu, and COVID-19 tests while students virtually visit with an online provider, offering a much-needed resource for parents who otherwise struggle with access to timely medical care.
The Texas-based company will provide services at no cost to the school, providing an iPad for online consultations and medical supplies like swabs, bandages, over-the-counter medicines, and tests.
Ross says that parents are able to register online and be part of the visit, and that “the provider can send prescribed medication to the local pharmacy of choice, make referrals, etc. They accept most insurance for their visits. This will increase access to health care and help decrease absences for students.”
Ross describes the Goodside Health process (which is billed to the parents’ insurance):
“They said it takes a couple minutes, but not really generally more than five minutes to get a provider on the line. And they can order a swab at that time.”
“If the child is feverish, they can order Tylenol, which I can give at that time. Should the strap test come back positive, they will send medication orders to the local pharmacy for the child.”
“It starts them off so much earlier.”
At the recent February Board of Education Meeting, Nurse Ross reported on the new program, saying that in the very short time in which they had officially rolled out the service, they had 10 visits, 6 of which “tested positive” for COVID, strep, or flu.
“I knew that (this service) would be a very big need in the community. I didn’t realize how much of a positive need it was. So far, it’s been really good,” Ross said.
“I think it’s going to be helpful to mitigate the spread of illness.”
With Goodside Health helping address acute illnesses for school children and staff and with Trestle Medical Services providing a broad solution for families, patients have another option for check-ups, vaccinations, and general medical care—without having to leave the mountain.
Sacramento Mountain Emergency Medical Services
For emergency services, local Volunteer Fire Departments (VFDs) provide EMS services, offering vital life-saving care in the absence of a full-time hospital or emergency room in Cloudcroft. The nearest emergency room is in Alamogordo, 27 minutes away from Cloudcroft but over an hour away from communities like Timberon.
Residents in Timberon and other remote areas rely on their VFDs for medical assistance, highlighting the gaps in rural healthcare infrastructure.
Emergency Medical Services and Cloudcroft Volunteer Fire Department Chief Erich Wuersching explains that Cloudcroft has three available ambulance options and several other medical rescue response teams.
AMR, American Medical Rescue, which responds to the entire Otero County, is staffed by paid employees. However, Wuersching notes that all other mountain area medical rescues and ambulance responders are volunteers.
“From a service standpoint, there are two big categories: One, an ambulance and one called a rescue, and that's got two categories. Certified medical rescue, where it's transport-capable and then not transport-capable. So in the mountains, we have several fire departments James Canyon, Mayhill, Timberon, Cloudcroft, High Rolls, Sacramento, and Weed. I think they're all at some level of medical rescue,” Wuersching says.
“They all have some level of the medical rescue and then Cloudcroft has an ambulance. Technically, we have three ambulance services. AMR, American Medical Rescue is the ambulance that is contracted by the county.”
“And then the third ambulance is over at Mescalero. In Cloudcroft, we have one ambulance and several medical rescues of different levels. Staff of those are a mixture of licensed or certified personnel.”
“If you're just a firefighter that has your basic level of CPR and first aid skills, you're not licensed. You just have a certificate. So you might help with those rescues, and can also help on our ambulance. We have plenty of people that we take on as third riders with us,” he says.
According to Wuersching, any life-threatening ambulance call delivers the patient to the nearest hospital. If the injury is non-life-threatening, say, an obviously broken ankle, the ambulance will take the patient to one of the three nearest hospitals: Christus Health in Alamogordo, the Lincoln County Medical Center in Ruidoso, or the Artesia General Hospital.
Medical rescues with transport-capable certifications can carry a patient all the way to the hospital. Wuersching says, “most of the time what happens, because the ambulance has a higher level of trained personnel on it, they will either wait for the ambulance if it's really close, or they'll go ahead and transport, but they'll rendezvous with us [the ambulance] somewhere on the highway and then they'll make the transfer. It's very rare that the certified medical rescues will actually carry the patient all the way to the hospital.”
Sacramento Mountain Medical Center
The Sacramento Mountain Medical Center, located on James Canyon Highway just west of Cloudcroft’s busy downtown, is another on-the-mountain option.
Primary Care Physician Dr. Sylvia Montoya staffs the center and is regularly joined by other Presbyterian Medical Services (PMS) nurse practitioners like John Garcia.
The Village’s Medical History
Wuersching remembers the doctors who originally inhabited the Sacramento Mountain Medical Center and recounts how things have changed:
“What is now the Sacramento Mountain Medical Clinic was opened by a doctor, a gentleman named Dr. Alan Breck. He was truly the quintessential doctor with a black bag and he would do house calls.”
“He would set arms and put casts on. He had a little dentistry office; he did everything. It was just like your quintessential small-town clinic, which would now be like an urgent care. But he did a little bit of everything.”
“Regulations forced him to change. He (ended up) downsizing and sold his practice to another gentleman, Dr. Curley. Dr. Curley carried on as best as he could, and then he had to start downsizing and Presbyterian Medical Services bought it.”
“Sometimes I think if they weren't attached to a larger organization, I'm not sure if an individual practice could survive.”
Mountain Healthcare Challenges
An urgent care facility may still be a distant goal.
When asked if he thinks Cloudcroft will ever have an urgent or emergency care clinic, Wuersching says, “I still think we're probably quite a ways away from having an urgent care up here. But I think it'll be in my lifetime. I'd really doubt it to be in the next 10 years, but maybe 20.”
The reality remains that Cloudcroft and the surrounding communities still face significant hurdles. The absence of an emergency care facility and the turnover of medical providers create a system where long-term healthcare solutions remain uncertain.
While the challenges of accessible healthcare in the Sacramento Mountains persist, efforts of new practices like Trestle Medical Services, partnerships such as Goodside Health through Cloudcroft Schools, and the dedication of local volunteer VFD and EMS teams are making a tangible difference in improving access to care for rural mountain residents.
How to Get in Touch:
Trestle Medical Services Offerings & Hours:
Their current hours of operation are:
Mondays and Thursdays (and “some Tuesdays”) from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 12:30-4:30 p.m. Check out their website.
Fridays from 2:00-4:30 p.m.
The practice offers monthly blood draws:
February 20th, March 20th and April 17th are tentative dates.
Blood draws are held from 9:30 am to 11:30 am. Appointments are preferred, but the clinic can take walk-ins.
Trestle Medical accepts insurance: they are credentialed with Blue Cross Blue Shield and also accept self-pay, Medicare, Medicaid, Railroad Medicare self-pay, Medic, Molina (though Molina Medicaid is still pending), United Healthcare, Presbyterian, Aetna, Multiplan, and Cigna.
Staff includes Family Nurse Practitioner Julia Eigenmann and additional medical support.
To get in touch, contact: Trestle Medical Services online or call 575-682-1014. Located at 1200 James Canyon Highway.
The Sacramento Mountain Medical Center hours are from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays and are closed on weekends.
To find out more or make an appointment, contact the Sacramento Mountain Medical Center online or call 575-682-2542. They are located at 74 James Canyon Highway.
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