By Diane Kortus Mathes
Staff Writer
LAND O’ LAKES — It’s been an incredible journey for Florida Medical Clinic.
In just 16 years, the physician-owned medical practice has grown from nine doctors to 100. Its original five physician offices in Zephyrhills and Dade City are now 16 offices in Wesley Chapel, New Tampa, Carrollwood and a brand new location in Land O’ Lakes.
There’s no question that the practice’s Land O’ Lakes facility is its showpiece. The $8.5 million, 32,000-square-foot, two-story, Spanish-style building is topped with a striking red tile roof. Inside, floors are marble tile, ceilings are high and medical specialties open out to central courtyard-like areas. Big windows let in bright, natural light and look out over a landscape of re-located palms and acres of mostly undeveloped land.
The clinic is the largest and most visible building on the busy SR 54 corridor between I-75 and US 41, and is the first structure completed on the 205-acre Terra Bella property.
When announced in 2006, the planned community of Terra Bella called for 311 apartments, 250 homes and a 32,000-square-foot mini-mall on 206 acres between Livingston Avenue and 20 Mile Level Road. The project was to be a new eastern gateway to Land O’ Lakes.
While the recession has stalled those projects, Florida Medical Clinic never faltered on its timetable. The clinic opened in September with 20 physicians in 11 specialties, including the core specialties of family medicine, cardiology interventional pain medicine and dermatology. It also houses a diagnostic laboratory and X-ray services.
Guiding the complex to its successful opening was Joe Delatorre, chief executive officer of Florida Medical Clinic.
“We never slowed down our plans for Land O’ Lakes when the economy slowed,” he said. “There were very few options for healthcare in this marketplace and we were needed here.”
The 48-year-old Wesley Chapel resident has led Florida Medical Clinic since the practice was established in 1993. Its five founding physicians recruited Delatorre to run all business aspects of their new practice to allow them to focus on taking care of patients. The concept of physicians using a business manager was a relatively new idea 20 years ago, Delatorre said.
“Florida Medical is all about doctors who just want to be doctors,” said Delatorre. “I was hired to do everything else.”
Delatorre was uniquely qualified for the job. The son of a physician who taught at the University of Florida, Delatorre was a 1988 University of Florida graduate, earning masters in business administration and health sciences.
One of his first jobs out of college was at Dade City Hospital (now Pasco Regional Medical Center), where he was chief executive officer at age 29. It was 1991 and the hospital was owned by Humana Hospitals. After a year in Dade City, the corporation promoted Delatorre to CEO of the much larger Humana Women’s Hospital in Tampa.
Two years later, Humana sold the hospital to St. Joseph’s and offered Delatorre another top position in Texas. At the same time, St. Joseph’s wanted him to stay on to lead its new management team.
Instead, Delatorre went with the vision of five doctors he knew from his year in Dade City to manage their new partnership in East Pasco.
Why did he take the risk of a new venture instead of the security of a large corporation?
“I was young and entrepreneurial,” Delatorre said. “I knew I could always go back to the corporate world because I had a successful tract record. But I thought the environment was right to help doctors run their business, and these were five people I knew and trusted.”
Under Delatorre’s leadership, the young practice grew quickly. In October of 1993, Florida Medical Clinic bought 12 acres and a vacant strip center on US 301 in Zephyrhills for $800,000 and began a $2.4 million renovation. A little more than a year later, in January1995, Delatorre moved his doctors into the new facility.
Next up on Delatorre’s mission to capture market share in East Pasco was Wesley Chapel. In 2000, Florida Medical Clinic purchased an old Shoney’s restaurant on SR 54 and I-75 and expanded it from 5,600 to 10,000 square feet.
In 2002, it recruited two premier gastroenterology offices in North Tampa, which were the catalyst for moving into New Tampa and building an ambulatory surgery center on Bruce B. Downs not far from University Community Hospital. Then it was Carrollwood, with an office at Bearss Avenue and Dale Mabry Highway.
In 2005, Florida Medical Clinic bought its 10 acres in Land O’ Lakes for $3.5 million and began to plan its mother ship. Now that its Land O’ Lakes facility is completed, Delatorre said they are looking at adding a 10,000 square-foot administrative building behind it.
Today, just about every medical specialty is found at Florida Medical Clinic, with the exception of obstetrics and pediatrics. Delatorre said those specialties will likely become part of the group when the right opportunities present themselves.
Florida Medical Clinic is the third largest physician group in the Tampa area, after the University of South Florida and Watson Clinic in Lakeland. It employs 130 medical providers and 700 support staff.
The Clinic remains physician owned and operated, with 68 doctors as shareholders.
“Every doctor is eligible to become a partner after three years,” explained Delatorre, a model which he says attracts some of the best doctors in the country.
Delatorre has lived in Saddlebrook since 1995 and before then in the Lake Padgett community in Land O’ Lakes. Married to Kelley for 26 years, their daughters attended elementary and middle school at Academy at the Lakes. Stephanie, 22, is a 2009 graduate of the University of Virginia and Shannon, 18, graduated high school last spring from Academy of Holy Names in Tampa.
Not many people know that Joe Delatorre’s parents escaped from Cuba in 1961 when his mother was eight months pregnant with him.
“My father likes to say that I was manufactured in Cuba and born in the United States,” he said.
After fleeing the Castro regime, his dad relocated the family to Virginia were he completed his medical residency in psychiatry at the University of Virginia and later settled permanently in Gainesville.
Since his stint at Dade City Hospital in the early 1990s, Pasco County has been Delatorre’s home.
“This is a community I love that has given me and my family so many opportunities,” he said. “It’s great to give something back.”
