Snohomish County has a serious shortage of primary care doctors, according to a study by local and state public health agencies. The shortage severely limits the number of poor and elderly patients who can get medical care in the county, the study says.
The report by the state Health Department and the Snohomish Health District compares the number of primary care doctors in Snohomish County with the number of people who live in the county.
Nationally, the average is one doctor for every 1,800 people. In Snohomish County, there is one doctor for every 2,511 people, more than twice that recommended in federal standards.
The gap is even bigger for the poor in Snohomish County, one doctor for every 3,286 people, indicating a serious shortage, according to the study.
Snohomish ranks as the county with the lowest ratio of primary care doctors to the overall population among Washington counties that have been checked. Similar studies have been done recently in Chelan, Douglas, Yakima, Spokane, Thurston, Grant, Kitsap and Whatcom counties.
Two major urban counties, King and Pierce, have yet to be surveyed.
It is especially difficult for patients in federal and state health care programs to get care in Snohomish County, officials said.
For low-income people, medical access is a significant problem, said Dr. M. Ward Hinds, health officer for the Snohomish Health District.
Only 14 percent of primary care physicians take new Medicaid patients, the federal-state health plan for the poor, the report says.
Twenty-four percent of local primary care doctors accept new Medicare managed care patients.
Problems with lack of medical access were first documented in a 2002 survey by the Snohomish County Medical Society. It found that only 5 percent of primary care doctors working in private medical clinics were openly accepting new Medicaid patients, and 45 percent were accepting new Medicare patients.
“Doctors don’t have the ability to raise their rates with private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid,” said Dr. Tony Roon, a former president of the Snohomish County Medical Society who frequently speaks out on the county’s health care problems.
Several years ago, some local doctors stopped taking new Medicaid or Medicare patients.
“Generally, those are patients that they see at a loss,” Roon said.
“If you want to stay in business, you can’t see too many Medicaid or Medicare patients without going bankrupt.”
Everett’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Consultants closed after 19 years in March 2002. And in November 2001, the Everett Family Practice Center went out of business, leaving about 10,000 patients to find other clinics.
“None of the market forces are working,” Roon said.
Low reimbursement rates and a relatively high cost of living mean it’s hard to draw new doctors to the area, he said.
The lack of access to medical care by the poor, uninsured and elderly have swamped area hospital emergency rooms, which cannot turn patients away under federal law.
Many of such patients have medical problems that could be treated by a primary care physician if they could get in to see one.
This crisis led to establishing a new clinic in Everett to treat Medicaid and Medicare patients and those without health insurance, joining Community Health Centers of Snohomish County in this mission.
Providence Everett Healthcare Clinic opened in January, a project that took a $1 million fund-raising drive to get off the ground, Roon said.
That still leaves an unknown number of area residents “who aren’t being seen anywhere,” he said.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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