Health center staff explain how their clinics work

Executives of the Cowlitz Family Health Center are hold community forums around Wahkiakum County this week to answer questions about how the center will serve the medical needs of Wahkiakum County residents.

The health center is taking over the practice operated at the Wahkiakum Family Health Clinic. County commissioners last spring asked the health center to consider taking over the financially strapped clinic.

The health center is a private, non-profit organization that contracts with the federal government to provide medical services. It operates clinics in Woodland, Longview and Ocean Park. A clinic in Cathlamet seemed to be a good fit for the health center's scope of services, Dian Cooper, health center executive director, said Tuesday.

She convinced her board of directors to give it a try, and received approval from federal funding program administrators to add the clinic to the health center's scope of work.

"I believe we will be able to provide the health care services that are needed in Wahkiakum County," Cooper said.

The clinics provide comprehensive primary health care services, Cooper said. They have programs to deal with the two most common diagnoses seen in the health center's clinics, diabetes and high blood pressure.

They'll treat illness, treat minor injuries, and perform simple lab tests. For more complicated lab tests, they'll draw blood and send it to a laboratory which will provide results within 24 hours. They'll do chronic pain management.

Cooper plans to staff the clinic with a full-time physician and part-time physician's assistant. As patient load increases, the physician's assistant's time will increase.

"The physician will be your primary physician," she said.

The health center has two physicians on the staff at St. John hospital; patients admitted to the hospital will be treated by the physicians working there. They will have access to the patient's records, which will be kept at the clinic in Cathlamet.

People needing X-rays will be sent to a radiologist in Longview, and health center staff will make referrals to specialists for patients needing specialized treatment.

The health center will accept all patients.

The center has a scheduling policy that allows people who need urgent care to be seen the same day that they seek an appointment.

People needing routine care will be seen within 14 days, she said, and people seeking preventative care will be seen within 30 days.

The health center accepts Medicare and Medicaid and most medical insurances. It offers a sliding scale for people with low income or no health insurance.

"We don't turn anybody away from our clinics," Cooper said, "but our clinics cater to the people in the area they serve. We won't be bussing people in from other areas."

The health center won't participate in the county's emergency medical services to the extent the private and county clinics have in the past.

Clinic staff will provide basic life support to people, she said, but people needing advanced life support will have to be transported as soon as possible to a hospital.

The federal contracts don't allow the clinics to provide advanced life support services such as intravenous therapies.

The health center will assume control of the clinic on January 2, Cooper said.

In the meantime, she and the staff will be completing paperwork to implement the new program, and they'll be getting the staff in place. Although the physician and physician's assistant will come from out of the area, the current clinic staff has been invited to apply for jobs in the health center clinic.

They'll also continue to work to introduce themselves to county residents.

On Tuesday, speakers addressed the board of county commissioners, from the Wahkiakum Chamber of Commerce, Rosburg Senior Meals and Grays River Grange.

Today (Thursday), they'll hold public forms in the commissioners' meeting room at 2 and 6 p.m. Next Thursday, they'll speak at the senior meal at the Cathlamet United Church of Christ, 11:45 a.m.