Showcase AZ: MomDoc

An Arizona-based women’s health care provider wants to make visiting the doctor a safe, familiar and enjoyable experience for women of all ages from across the Valley.

MomDoc was founded in 1976 by Dr. Clifford Goodman, Jr., who was looking for a small town in which to establish family roots when he finally landed on Chandler, where he began working in labor and delivery and later became chief of staff at what is now Chandler Regional Medical Center.

More than 40 years later, MomDoc offers gynecological, obstetric and midwifery services at 16 office locations  and multiple hospitals throughout the Valley, touting a “women for women” model that puts patients at the center of all decisions.

“MomDoc is kind of your all-women comprehensive care,” said Dr. Brittany Stam, an OB-GYN who has worked at MomDoc in Scottsdale for four years. “We see women for basic needs, such as birth control counseling, to their complete prenatal care, to women who are just coming in for an annual visit to get their well-woman exams done, to women that have already gone through menopause that are now coming to us for all their hormone replacement needs.”

MomDoc looks at the whole patient experience from the time she arrives to the time she leaves, including any tests that may be required and any surgical needs, said Melissa Troncale, a certified nurse-midwife at MomDoc. The practice expands on the services offered by a typical OB-GYN office, providing evening and weekend appointments and doing lab work in-house so patients don’t have to go to different locations, she said.

“I think there are a lot of things that make MomDoc unique,” Troncale said. “The main thing for me is just being able to work for a company with really strong values, a company that thinks of the patient first, that takes care of its employees.”

One of MomDoc’s unique features is its living room-style lobby, which is meant to create a warm, welcoming experience when patients arrive at the office.

“As a woman, I know that choosing a gynecologist is really intimidating,” Stam said. “When you come into our offices, what’s really unique is that, unlike other medical offices, you’re not walking into this cold environment where you’re met with this glass partition between yourself and a staff; you are greeted into what we call our living room.”

Stam said she gets frequent feedback from patients saying they feel much better in what can be an extremely vulnerable situation because of MomDoc’s reassuring setting.

“You come in and our medical concierges are greeting you, sitting down with you in nice, comforting chairs and not this cold medical building,” Stam said.

MomDoc emphasizes its flexibility in scheduling, recognizing that patients come from a wide variety of backgrounds — from working women who can’t make daytime appointments to stay-at-home moms with multiple children and hectic schedules.

“All of those women have different needs, and they have different schedules, and for us, if you need to be seen at 7:00 in the morning, we have that ability,” Stam said. “If you need to be seen at 8:00 p.m., we can do that, too, and you can get same-day appointments. That flexibility is what is unique, and it’s what draws women in.”

Troncale said when looking through her schedule she often sees names she’s familiar with, and that stands out to her as a unique aspect of MomDoc.

“It’s amazing to see patients who I’ve delivered one, two or three babies [for] now, and they become like friends to me, and family,” Troncale said. “Sometimes I describe my office visits [as] just meeting with my best girlfriends all day long.”

MomDoc has a strong history and a “good legacy” in Arizona because it is where the company first laid down roots, Troncale said. Arizona’s population growth makes MomDoc well-situated for expansion, Stam said.

“Arizona is a wonderful place for MomDoc because Arizona is growing like crazy,” Stam said. “Arizona has some of the fastest-growing cities in the country. You need to have a practice that has the ability to expand and be able to see women all over the Valley.”