Medicare in Sequim (Seattle, Tacoma, Yakima: day care, construction, taxi)

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Don't you live in Bellingham? Why are you posting on a Sequim thread?

2 reasons, I've spent a lot of time in that area and know it fairly well, and healthcare availability is a major statewide problem with us having grown an additional million people. The same question is being asked everywhere around here "does anyone know any doctors in (fill in the blank _______, WA)accepting medicare patients?

[CalWorth]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

Can I ask if its the availability of plans for an area or is it the actual availability of doctors offices accepting new medicare patients?
From what I understand, Medicare "short pays" the doctors, and due to marked growth in the area we see a lot of offices that aren't taking any new Medicare patients or new patients at all. Additional job openings for medical personel go unfilled because any doctor or nurse is going to go for a nice place with a pool on their income somewhere else, instead of having to "bid" $750,000 for a 1,100sq/ft fixer home that needs a complete gut.
Despite the growth in my area, my primary care facility actually closed a few years ago, the doctor moved the whole thing out of state. All I could find was an opening with a PA, and it takes 4-6 weeks+ to be able to get in to get seen.

There are 2 major healthcare providers in Port Angeles. One is Olympic Medical Physicians, next door to Olympic Medical Center. The most specialists are in this group. There is a satellite office in Sequim, but the providers are the same, they split their time between PA & Sequim. The cancer clinic in Sequim is run by Olympic Medical Physicians. I don't know which type of cancers are treated there.

Also in PA is North Olympic Health care Network. Their services are family practice, OB/GYN, pediatrics, mental health, dental.

In Sequim there is the Jamestown clinic. They do primary care, I think diabetes, ob/gyn, mental health. They have a dental clinic where I tried to get on a waiting list but I was told they were so full that they did not have a list. They did build a separate building where drug addicts go get methadone and they plan to add on for mental patients.

The Medicare situation here is the same as what you describe. Many times, patients are seen by physicians assistants or nurse practitioners, not medical doctors. There are some doctors who practice in Silverdale or Seattle and travel here to see patients on certain days.

I know that Port Townsend has its own small hospital. I don't know their provider situation.

I know that because of lack of specialists here, I had to go back to Swedish in downtown Seattle yesterday for another test. The traffic was terrible, the ferry, hospital parking & gas were expensive. Return traffic was stopped on one highway because of forest fire. It was a long, costly day & it isn't over.

I am really surprised that you are having difficulty in Bellingham with finding medical care. That's troubling. The Olympic Peninsula has experienced a lot of growth recently, without the social & economic infrastructure to support it.

[MechAndy]

Is the Jamestown medical clinic on the same lot as the methadone clinic or is the Jamestown clinic that largish medical building across town?

[CalWorth]

Originally Posted by MechAndy

Is the Jamestown medical clinic on the same lot as the methadone clinic or is the Jamestown clinic that largish medical building across town?

Medical clinic is on 5th Avenue. Drug clinic is new building behind Costco.

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by CalWorth

I am really surprised that you are having difficulty in Bellingham with finding medical care. That's troubling. The Olympic Peninsula has experienced a lot of growth recently, without the social & economic infrastructure to support it.

It's troubling, but not surprising. Bellingham went through what is now happening on the peninsula. Medical personnel can get a job anywhere these days, why choose a place (Bellingham or elsewhere in WA) where they can only afford to rent half of a townhouse in a not-so-great neighborhood and deal with all the lack of services and labor when they can have a nice home on acreage somewhere else with a pool for the same money without all the "empty middle" fallout?
The cost of living is just simply making the area unattractive to those who can pick and choose where they want to live and work.

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by CalWorth

There are 2 major healthcare providers in Port Angeles. One is Olympic Medical Physicians, next door to Olympic Medical Center. The most specialists are in this group. There is a satellite office in Sequim, but the providers are the same, they split their time between PA & Sequim. The cancer clinic in Sequim is run by Olympic Medical Physicians. I don't know which type of cancers are treated there.

Also in PA is North Olympic Health care Network. Their services are family practice, OB/GYN, pediatrics, mental health, dental.

In Sequim there is the Jamestown clinic. They do primary care, I think diabetes, ob/gyn, mental health. They have a dental clinic where I tried to get on a waiting list but I was told they were so full that they did not have a list. They did build a separate building where drug addicts go get methadone and they plan to add on for mental patients.

The Medicare situation here is the same as what you describe. Many times, patients are seen by physicians assistants or nurse practitioners, not medical doctors. There are some doctors who practice in Silverdale or Seattle and travel here to see patients on certain days.

I know that Port Townsend has its own small hospital. I don't know their provider situation.

I know that because of lack of specialists here, I had to go back to Swedish in downtown Seattle yesterday for another test. The traffic was terrible, the ferry, hospital parking & gas were expensive. Return traffic was stopped on one highway because of forest fire. It was a long, costly day & it isn't over.

I am really surprised that you are having difficulty in Bellingham with finding medical care. That's troubling. The Olympic Peninsula has experienced a lot of growth recently, without the social & economic infrastructure to support it.

You might consider driving around, and going up I90 to the Swedish at Issaquah Highlands. I have spent a lot of time there in the last couple of years. It's much easier to get in and out, lots of free parking, and all of the specialists. Many of them also work at Seattle or another location, so you just have to get appointmnts in advance. When getting treated there I met people coming in from Cle Elum and even Yakima. With the construction around the ferry terminal Seattle congestion is worse than the few times I had to go to Seattle Swedish. One time the parking garage was completely full, I had to find another lot and pay even more, and walk several blocks.

With family in Sequim, we have found that driving around via the Tacoma Narrows bridge is about the same time as the ferry on a good day, faster than when you miss the ferry and have to wait for another.

[CalWorth]

^^Thank you for the suggestion. I actually started this process at Swedish Issaquah with a specialist there. I like that location, it was easy to navigate &, as you said, free parking. However, the diagnostic tests they ordered were only available at First Hill, downtown. That place is a nightmare.

I have traveled around the sound & over the bridge for medical treatment before & probably will do that in the future instead of the ferry. But no matter which way we went over the past two months the traffic was really bad.

[MechAndy]

I find the ferries stressful if I have to be somewhere at a set time.
I just hate being late to anything so I only really use them when I have time to kill.

[ukiyo-e]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

That's very interesting. I'd heard that people in Pt Townsend go to Kitsap or Seattle for services their hospital doesn't offer, but it sounds like they only need to go to PA. Strange I haven't heard mention of that, from people I know there, nor on the WA forum here, on the Pt T and O. Peninsula threads. This is good news.

I lived in Port Townsend for 5 years and still visit a former neighbor there several times a year. She has been able to get most of her health problems taken care of at the hospital in Port Townsend, but her son has complex heart problems that he can only get care for in Seattle, and her husband had to be taken to the hospital in Bremerton, where he died. This was years ago and it still bothers her that she wasn't with him at the time because she needed someone to drive her back and forth and didn't have a ride that day. A lot of people on the Peninsula have medivac insurance in case they need to be taken by helicopter to Harborview in Seattle or elsewhere for emergencies.

It's one reason I left PT before I went on Medicare. I had to drive to Sequim for a dermatologist, to Silverdale for an ENT, and wait months for physical therapy for an acute problem. I'm getting older and I want to be closer to better health care with a variety of specialists nearby. So far I haven't needed any of them, but I feel confident knowing they are there if I do.

I miss the Olympic Peninsula and occasionally think of moving to Sequim for the weather, but the health care situation deters me.

[Fat Freddy]

Medicare Part C ,"Medicare Advantage" that you see advertised constantly on TV, is not Medicare.
It is private insurance.
It was Bush's attempt to privative medicare.

When you sign up for that, it's like joining an HMO.
You only use their doctors, and their facilities.

I have Medicare Part A&B, and an AARP Supplement.
I use Good RX for drugs.

Except for drugs, I have never paid anything, ever, and over the years I have had over a million dollars worth of operations, implants, hospitalization, and physical therapy.

And, I get to choose my doctors and specialists.