The news that the residents of Smokey Point will soon be getting closer access to outpatient medical services is wonderful. (Monday article, “Construction begins on Smokey Point clinic.“) John Wolcott’s article fails to mention, however, that this may adversely impact patients and their families when it comes to accessing hospital services.
The partnership with Skagit Valley Hospital will undoubtably come with strings attached. Patients will be directed north to Skagit County for hospital procedures not performed at Cascade Valley Hospital by physicians employed by one of these medical systems. Skagit Valley Hospital is a fine hospital, but it is more than 10 miles farther from Smokey Point than Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, a well-respected, nonprofit institution where independent physicians have provided award-winning specialty care to Snohomish County residents for many decades.
Furthermore, the most cutting-edge services, such as robotically assisted coronary bypass and percutaneous heart valve replacement, are only available south of Snohomish County, not north.
Having close access to your primary care provider and specialist physician will certainly be convenient for the residents of Smokey Point, but if your doctor recommends you have your procedures in a completely different county at a hospital 10 miles farther away from your home and family rather than the most award-winning hospital in Washington state, then be sure to ask them why.
Eric Haas, MD
Everett
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