Reflections on 30 years at The Everett Clinic

This is my 30th year at The Everett Clinic, part of Optum. Wow! Time flies.

In 1993, I was hired to start and direct the Behavioral Health Department at The Everett Clinic. Our first office was on the ground floor of the Medical Office Building at the Colby campus. I hired three counselors and our department was busy from the very beginning. The support we received from the doctors for our fledgling department was impressive. They wanted quick access for urgent patients and communication from our therapists about our work with their patients. We were also a resource for staff that needed mental health services.

It was, as it is now, a turbulent time in health care. In those years, the clinic was paid a monthly fee to provide health and mental health services for many of our patients. Our goal was to make sure that patients received what they needed, no less. We offered a variety of educational classes to the community — on parenting, improving relationships, depression and relieving anxiety. Over the years, thousands of community members attended these low-cost classes.

Our department grew with Snohomish County. Over the first 10 years, we added more therapists. Primary care providers were so pleased with our service they asked us to co-locate with them so it would be easy for their patients to see us. Over the years, we added behavioral offices at many of the satellites spread throughout the county, now throughout the Puget Sound.

We were on the front lines of providing help during crises in our community — the shootings involving youth in Marysville and Mukilteo, the pandemic, and critical incidents at our clinic.

I became the very first non-physician partner of a medical group in Washington state in the middle 1990s. It was a privilege and an honor for me to participate in our physician-owned medical practice. Our clinic leadership provided support to our growing department. I loved working with many of our long-time physicians in our community.

I retired from my job as director of the department in 2019 after 26 years. I turned over the reins of our department to the very able Dr. Nick Tamoria, an adult psychiatrist. During the pandemic, with the expansion of telehealth, our department grew to meet the explosion of demand for mental health services. In 2022, our team grew to 52 providers delivering close to 70,000 office visits! In this same year, we were voted the best Behavioral Health Department in Snohomish County by Daily Herald readers.

I continue to work part-time, seeing patients virtually, and have no plans to retire completely. I started writing “Family Talk” in 2012 as a blog for the clinic. The column has been appearing weekly in The Daily Herald since 2016. For me, it’s a labor of love to share my knowledge and experience as a psychologist with our community.

During my years as director, I continued to work as a family psychologist, working with children and adults. I have grown up with many of my patients — some I started seeing when they were teens. As I continue my psychology practice, I see them periodically as middle-age adults with families of their own. It’s been gratifying to be part of their lives.

I’ve loved working at The Everett Clinic. Despite all of the changes in health care, we’ve always valued the goal of doing the right thing for our patients. It was patient-centered care that drew me to the clinic 30 years ago and keeps me working today.

Paul Schoenfeld is a clinical psychologist at The Everett Clinic. His Family Talk blog can be found at www. everettclinic.com/ healthwellness-library.html.