Board approves clinic personnel

Wahkiakum County commissioners on Tuesday approved a recommended hire and other moves designed to shore up the Wahkiakum Family Practice Clinic.

The board approved a recommendation from clinic Business Manager Kathy Patterson to offer a position and negotiate a salary with a physician’s assistant formerly employed at a Seaside clinic which has closed.

Patterson said filling the vacant position should provide the staff needed to generate enough revenue to meet its revenue goal for the year.

To become self sustaining, the clinic needs to add another nurse practioner to the staff, she said, and efforts are underway to recruit a candidate for that job.

The board also approved a recommendation from Patterson to hire a half-time billing clerk.

“Things have settled down,” she said. “I believe we are at the point that we can fill it.”

She added that she had assumed the duties of the position and was putting in a lot of overtime to get her work and the other work done.

Faced with a $1 million revenue shortfall for 2008, commissioners in July voted to impose a hiring freeze on all county jobs. Commission Chair George Trott brought this up for the request and suggested the board wait till next week when Commissioner Blair Brady, who was absent to meet with Senator Patty Murray, had returned.

“This is a case of spending money to save money,” said Carol Larson, a member of the Clinic Advisory Board, which the commissioners appointed last year to advise them on clinic management. The cost of paying Patterson overtime salary rate will be higher than paying a new employee, she said.

At that point, Trott and Commissioner Dan Cothren voted to authorize hiring the part-time billing clerk.

In other clinic business:

—The board also approved a recommendation from Patterson to authorize the clinic to contract with North West Medical Analytical Laboratory for lab work at the clinic.

The firm will rent the clinic’s lab space, she said, and bill customers for lab work. This will free the clinic’s medical assistants to do other work. Patterson calculated that having clinic staff do the lab work cost the clinic $15,000 per year, a loss which will be eliminated by the contract.

—Patterson reported that the solicitation for funds mailed to 1,973 county residents had resulted in 127 responses in one week and $15,543 in contributions.

She expects more contributions to come in following weeks.

Clinic managers hope to raise $200,000 or more to help cover an ongoing revenue shortfall this year.

Patterson reported that revenues for July should be the biggest month for the clinic since October of last year.