Our Region
Covenant Medical Group is headquartered in Lubbock, Texas, the site of the Southwest's preeminent medical center between the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex and Phoenix. With a county population of 307,000+ and serving an area of 1.2 million people in the region, Lubbock has many of the amenities of a large metropolitan area, international airport, great shopping and restaurants, and excellent public and private schools, yet retaining a wonderful "small-town" atmosphere.
It is blessed with a major university, Texas Tech, which adds much to our quality of life with Big 12 Conference sporting events, and a variety of cultural, and academic activities. Texas Tech University School of Medicine adds high quality continuing medical education and research to our region. Covenant Medical Group has no formal residency training programs of its own, but several of our physicians volunteer their time for medical student and resident training via a Texas Tech association.
Our health system's regional clinics are located throughout West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. These clinics are located in a variety of geographic areas; from rolling ranchland, to high plateau farmland, to desert oil fields, to river valleys with nearby Rocky Mountains. This area of regional clinics extends 100 to 175 miles from Lubbock and covers a 63,000 square mile area. There are two beautiful National Parks (Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains), a scenic ski resort community (Ruidoso, New Mexico), and Texas's largest state park (Palo Duro) within our regional clinic service area. Our regional clinic network contains several operational different models. Some are directly owned and operated by CMG; some are Rural Health Clinics in which CMG supplies its employed physicians to work for a rural hospital-owned facility; some are Rural Health Clinics in which the physicians are independent contractors; and some are satellite clinic sites to which CMG subspecialists travel a few times per month. These regional clinics are integral to the provision of primary care services to their local communities, and also send substantial numbers of patients to Lubbock for tertiary care that is not available locally.
Our area's true strength is its people. They are spiritual, caring, proud, independent, and exhibit a strong work ethic. Our unemployment rate is typically in the 2 to 3% range. Our economy is diverse, with elements associated with mechanized agriculture, the petroleum industry, distribution centers, high tech entities, as well as strong elements based on higher education and healthcare. Its diversity and provincial nature typically allows it to remain somewhat insulated from the wide swinging cycles of the national economy.
Our weather features an average of 18 inches of precipitation annually, low humidity, and plenty of sunshine which encourages our population to engage in outdoor activities. Our 3,500 foot elevation tends to make for cool mornings and evenings even during a hot summer, and rarely do we experience persistent snow or ice. For those who enjoy winter and mountain sports, we are convenient to the Rocky Mountain resorts of Ruidoso and Santa Fe, New Mexico. For those that enjoy big city weekend activities and professional sports, we are 50 minutes from Dallas and 90 minutes from Houston by air.
Who We Are & How We Operate
Covenant Medical Group is a non-profit, tax-exempt medical foundation that is certified under Texas law to employ physicians and practice medicine. It is owned by Covenant Health System, but is self-governing in most aspects, other than fiscal matters. There is a Board of 16 physicians who provide the oversight of the group's strategic planning, policy development, recruitment and credentialing, quality improvement tasks, research, and medical education activities. All of the Board members are actively practicing within CMG. This self-governing aspect of CMG tends to make it quite physician-friendly in its policy development and planning in that the Board members are immediately personally impacted in their own practice by their Board decisions.
Our Administration includes: Kristen Kothmann (Chief Executive Officer), Tina Foss (Chief Operating Officer) and seven Directors. CMG is by far the area's largest medical group with more than 280+ providers with 100+ Advanced Practitioners, and 35+ specialties.
We do an excellent job of recruiting new physicians, retaining them in our service area, and integrating them into our overall group practice. In our fourteen years of operation we have recruited over 100 new physicians to our area. In summary, we are the largest, most geographically dispersed, highest quality, and most prestigious medical group to ever exist in our region of the US.