EVERETT — Providence Everett Healthcare Clinic, which opened in 2004 to provide medical care to low income and uninsured patients, will become part of the nonprofit Community Health Center of Snohomish County in November.
The Providence clinic opened in a storefront in College Plaza on Broadway. It moved across the street to 930 N. Broadway on the Everett Community College campus in 2013. The clinic had about 9,500 patient visits last year. The transfer of clinic ownership is effective Nov. 6.
“We’re hoping the transition for patients is the least disruptive as possible,” said Bob Farrell, Community Health Center’s chief executive. The Community Health Center accepts the same five Medicaid health plans as the Providence clinic.
Patients will be mailed letters in early September notifying them of the change.
The Community Health Center will take over the clinic lease on the EvCC campus. The physicians, nurse practitioners, and other professional staff will continue to work at the clinic for the next year and be paid by Providence.
“We hope they will stay with us after that year,” Farrell said. “Basically, we’re being handed highly qualified individuals who are trained well.”
The change is being made because even with a staff of five medical providers, “for the last several years, we’ve recognized that we have more need than we can meet,” said Dr. Tom Yetman, chief medical officer for Providence Medical Group.
If staffing was increased to meet the demand, it also would increase the clinic’s losses, which were projected to be close to three quarters of a million dollars this year, he said.
The Community Health Center can qualify for federal funding to support its clinics that Providence as a hospital system cannot, he said.
That allows the Community Health Center to come close to breaking even on treating its patients while providing services the Providence clinic doesn’t have, such as dental and behavioral health services, Yetman said.
The Community Health Center has clinics in Arlington, Edmonds, Lynnwood and two clinics in Everett. The Lynnwood clinic offers walk-in services.
Its current clinic on Broadway is at capacity. So the Providence clinic, less than a mile away, will allow the organization to serve more patients, Farrell said.
Even with that addition, the Community Health Center hopes to add another clinic in Everett next year on Rucker Avenue.
It now has about 52,000 patients, providing medical, dental, behavioral health, obstetric, and pharmacy services.
Talks with Providence on the transfer of the clinic began in December.
The Community Health Center was founded in 1983, originally to refer people who had no health insurance to where they could get appointments. “They didn’t have a whole lot of places to refer to,” Farrell said. “Out of that we became a clinic.”
Providence Everett Healthcare Clinic has a similar history of growing out of local need.
It began in 2002. Dr. Tony Roon, who was president of the Snohomish County Medical Society, met with a group of women on welfare who were in a job preparation class in Monroe.
At the time, the state said Snohomish County was one of the three worst counties for Medicaid patients to access health care.
Only 5 percent of 325 primary care doctors in private medical practice were accepting new Medicaid patients. The state didn’t pay clinics enough to break even on the appointments.
Hospital emergency departments often offered the only available medical care for Medicaid children and adults.
Roon and Snohomish County Executive Bob Drewel launched a fund drive to open a new nonprofit clinic, making their pitch in a series of community meetings.
“Tony and I rode that thing like an Army mule,” Drewel said of the effort during a recent interview.
More than $1 million was raised in about 10 months — enough to open the clinic’s doors in January 2004.
Roon oversaw the clinic until 2011, recently calling it “one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things I ever did.”
Drewel said the clinic was “a thought ahead of its time” in providing health care services to a part of the community that was not receiving them.
“The pioneering work Tony did caused a community response and for that you’ve got to find joy,” he said.
While feeling some sadness at the pending change at a clinic people put such effort into creating, Drewel said he had no qualms over its planned transfer to the Community Health Center.
“It was kindness that put it together and kindness that’s going to sustain it,” he said. “The important part is making people healthier.”
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.
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