– from Orcas Medical Foundation (OMF) –
This is the second in a series of answers to frequently asked questions about the OMF/UW Medicine plan to have a UW Neighborhood Clinic on Orcas Island. The complete ongoing, cumulative OMF/UW Medicine Q&A document, is available now by clicking this link: www.orcasmedicalcenter.com/q-a-omfuw-medicine.
Here are just four of the Q&A’s you’ll find on the complete Q&A document:
How would the UW Neighborhood Clinic on Orcas be staffed?
Orcas Medical Foundation (OMF) supports University of Washington Neighborhood Clinics (UWNC) establishing a new practice at the Medical Building and integrating any and all Orcas practices at the facility. We understand that UWNC would be responsible for evaluating and hiring providers and staff who apply for employment. OMF believes this would enhance our goal of providing high quality medical care to all members of our community on a financially sustainable basis.
Is it true that OMF has offered to collaborate with other Orcas practices in the past?
Yes, most recently an independent local group proposed a plan for sharing after-hours call across all three practices, and Orcas Medical Center (OMC) agreed to participate.
Is it true that “75% of Orcas residents do not get health care at the Medical Center?”
In the latest reporting period, Orcas Medical Center’s net patient revenue was reported as $912,231 or nearly twice that of Orcas Family Health Clinic’s net patient revenue at $518,815. Clearly, OMC provides far more of the medical care on Orcas Island than is perceived.
Who owns the Medical Center building?
Orcas Medical Foundation (OMF), a 501c3 non-profit organization (originally known as the Orcas Island Medical Building Association), was created to raise funds for, construct, and oversee the management of the building. Individual community members generously donated the funds. OMF owns the building and land. No public funds have ever been involved.
And here are additional questions you’ll find answered on the complete Q&A document:
- Does only one Orcas practice provide care for all, regardless of ability to pay?
- Will we really be on the hook for $300K a year in addition to $750K start-up costs?
- Could patients of another practice use the UW Neighborhood Clinic on Orcas?
- Will the Epic electronic medical record system (EMR) only communicate with UW Medicine and its affiliates?
- What has after-hours care on Orcas Island looked like over the past few years?
- Can other practitioners, such as off-island specialists, send patients to the clinic for blood draws and so on?
For further information or answers to any other questions you might have, feel free to contact omfboard@orcasmedicalcenter.com.
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
Can you please elaborate on how “net patient revenue” is a measure of quantity of resident medical consumers? Seems like a bit of an Apples-to-Monkeys comparison to me.
What would be incredibly helpful is for Island Hospital to release complete financial data of the Orcas operation along with aggregate patient data and statistics so that the residents of Orcas Island could review meaningful data. I would ask the other medical providers for their willingness to do the same.
It would provide a usefull data set for us all to use in assessing the real situation, rather that viewing it through glasses that only show us partial metrics.
I totally agree with Justin Paulsen’s comments on the OMF response “Clearly OMC provides far more of the medical care on Orcas Island than is perceived.” I don’t think that is clear at all. I only see one other practice shown (OFHC) and nothing about Dr. Russell’s practice.What is shown is only a difference between Dr. Shinstrom’s practice and OMF of $393,416. The question they were supposed to answer wasn’t about revenue, it was percentage of patients. Stating that their revenue was “nearly twice that of Orcas Family Health Clinic’s net patient revenue” is a little off. They would have needed $1,037,630 to be “nearly twice” and that means they were $125,399 short. Again, the question they were supposed to answer was about number of patients, NOT dollars! And again Dr. Russell’s practice isn’t included at all. It still looks like Dr. Shinstrom and Dr. Russell are probably seeing a larger percentage of patients than the Medical Center. Maybe next issue they can answer the actual question with the percentage of patients they see in comparison to the other two practices.
Justin and Ginny—here is some data from Orcas Family Health Center. I LOVE statistics and spreadsheets and analyzing them for trends, strengths, and areas that need improvement; thank you so much for asking! I could go on and on about how much I enjoy this.
As a Rural Health Clinic we are required to analyze our program services annually. I use the previous three years of data to look at trends and to get an idea about what the size of our patient panel is. Not every patient goes to see their provider every year (I use “provider” instead of doctor because Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners have become integral primary care providers) otherwise healthy individuals may only go once every two or three years so looking at the bigger picture helps capture those situations.
That being said, here is data from the current annual utilization review I have been working on, as well as a three year summary which shows why OFHC conservatively believes it provides care to over 45% of the Orcas population. The dates are for our fiscal year periods which run October 1 through September 30. Data is from FYE 2014 through 2016. Visits are provider visits; they do not include nursing only visits.
What stood out to me most was that I saw about a 25% decrease in visits generated by tourism last year compared to the two previous years!
Unique individuals who came to OFHC for care during each fiscal year:
2014: 2,348 total, 248 from the San Juan Islands, 382 from other places in the world; all came for a total of 6,813 visits.
2015: 2,341 total, 264 from the San Juan Islands, 396 from other places, all came for a total of 7,346 visits.
2016: 2,188 total, 157 from the San Juan Islands, 291 from other places (~25% decrease)
3 Year analysis FYEs 2014-2016:
4,188 unique individuals came to OFHC for 21,180 visits. 739 came from another San Juan Island, 576 came from other parts of the world.
4,188 minus the non-Orcas patients leaves 2,873 Orcas residents. According to those numbers, and if the Orcas population has been around 5,500, about 52% of Orcas received care at OFHC over the last three years. Since we cover call for Dr. Russell, and we see OMC patients who sometimes can’t get an appointment at OMC, 45% is a conservative estimate of the OFHC patient panel.
The annual data is submitted with our 990 tax returns which makes it public information. If you are curious about anything else I can answer about Rural Health Clinics or OFHC—please ask!