Patients praise new south Everett clinic

Patients making their first visit this week to the Community Health Center of Snohomish County’s new $9.6 million medical office building in south Everett could hardly believe what they saw.

“It’s bigger, more comfortable,” said Ana Salazar of Everett as she looked around the spacious, sunlit medical offices.

The new nonprofit clinic on 112th Street SW is about two blocks from her home. “To have a new place with everything new,” she said, smiling as she gazed at the new offices. “It was bigger than I was expecting.”

The clinic replaces the organization’s former south Everett clinic on Evergreen Way, where space was so cramped that the waiting room was often filled to standing room only. Patients typically had to wait four to six weeks for routine medical checkups.

The new building has twice as much space for medical services. It also houses a dental clinic, which opens Monday, and a pharmacy, scheduled to open by the end of this month.

It is the latest, and biggest, building project by the nonprofit organization, which also operates medical and dental clinics in north Everett and Lynnwood. Last year, it treated more than 29,000 patients.

Although the organization’s clinics are open to anyone, more than half its medical and dental patients are low income, about half are age 19 or younger and more than one in four patients have no health insurance.

Fees are based on a patient’s income. The minimum charge for an office visit is $20. However, no one is turned away due to inability to pay.

The new medical office building on 112th Street is the first built by the nonprofit organization from the ground up since the opening of its Lynnwood clinic in March 1997.

The south Everett building’s health care offices are on its second floor. With its 25 exam rooms, it eventually will be able to handle 30,000 medical appointments a year.

Dr. Dean Williams, the clinic’s medical director, helped open the organization’s former south Everett office on Evergreen Way in the summer of 1999, which it rapidly outgrew.

“We love it,” he said of the new medical offices. “We’ve got plenty of room.”

Once patients start coming to the new building, “we’ll see a steady stream that turns into a flood,” Williams said.

One of the first medical patients to be treated at the new offices was Janet Lewis of Everett. She’s gotten her medical treatment through the nonprofit organization for 17 years.

“This looks really nice,” she said. “I like the wood floor, the purple chairs, it’s more modern.”

Fourteen-year-old Pedro Nunez sat nearby in the waiting room, listening to songs on an iPod, a gift from his sister for good grades.

“It’s close to my house and really nice,” he said of the new medical building. “It’s money well spent.”

Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.

New medical clinic

Community Health Center of Snohomish County, 1019 112th St. SW, Everett.

Phone numbers: Medical appointments, 425-551-6200; dental appointments, 425-551-6001; pharmacy, 425-551-6521.

Cost of construction: $9.6 million.

Size: 25,000 square feet, double of the size of the organization’s clinic on Evergreen Way.

Features: The medical clinic, on the second floor, opened Monday. The clinic initially will have five health care providers and will gradually increase to 10 by 2009. It has 25 exam rooms and two procedure rooms.

When at full capacity, it can accommodate 30,000 medical appointments and 11,000 dental appointments a year.

Hours: Monday through Wednesday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Thursday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The dental clinic, on the first floor, will open week of July 9. It has 10 examination and treatment rooms. Its hours will be Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The pharmacy, also on the first floor, will be open by the end of the month. Hours will be Monday through Friday, 9:15 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Open house: 2 p.m. July 19.