Medrite Urgent Care opens Smithtown walk-in clinic, its first on Long Island

A new walk-in medical clinic has opened in Smithtown.

The Medrite Urgent Care practice at 82 E. Main St. in Branch Plaza started seeing patients this week.  The clinic is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

The practice is Medrite’s first location on Long Island. The company’s CEO, Samuel Fisch, said its expansion to Long Island “is another way to reach our goals of providing exceptional care to as many patients as possible.”

The chain, founded in New York City in 2010, offers treatment for injuries, illnesses and wounds, as well as pediatrics and orthopedic care, X-rays, testing and vaccinations, among other services. It operates 36 clinics in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida, Medrite said.

The company received a $5 million contract with New York City in 2021 to work on the city’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Last year, Medrite’s work expanded to include the city’s monkeypox vaccine program and the website where users could make appointments.

Medrite faced criticism when the online scheduling system malfunctioned, first allowing some users to access the system before its official launch and later crashing. The company said in a statement last year that the appointment system received an “overwhelming response” from users and that Medrite “quickly reassessed our scheduling system and updated it to match the needs of the community.”

In 2016, Medrite reached a $100,000 settlement with then-State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman over charges it paid for positive online reviews from people who had never received treatment at its clinics. The attorney general said that over a two-year period, Medrite — which at the time operated three adult and pediatric walk-in clinics, with Fisch as its CEO — paid thousands of dollars to advertising companies and freelance writers to write positive reviews on consumer websites such as Yelp.com.

Half the penalty amount was “suspended assuming compliance with the settlement agreement, due to the financial condition of the company,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement. Medrite paid $50,000, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said.

Medrite declined to comment on the 2016 settlement.

By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott is a reporter on the investigations desk. Since starting at Newsday in 2012, she has also covered real estate and the business of health care.