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City Beat
Group plans to close WG area acute care clinic
Company official says patients prefer visiting their own doctors over the ER
By Kate Carter
Citing efforts to respond to patients' preferences and improve efficiency, the San Jose/Good Samaritan Medical Group announced recently that it is closing one of its nine area facilities. But some employees say the move will reduce patient service and could end up costing the company more in the long run.
Doctors who work in the general medicine section of the center on the corner of Leigh and Foxworthy avenues began moving to other nearby centers last month. The last few will move on May 4, according to a letter sent out on April 1, to the group's member payers and brokers, said Vice President of Operations Jeff Hughes. The acute care center of the facility will be moved to the group's Lincoln Avenue site, near Parkmoor Avenue, later in June.
Hughes said the decision, made in March by the group's board of directors, will give patients a chance to get better care from their own physicians, rather than at acute care centers, something he said their patients prefer.
It's also a cost-cutting measure, he said, "a consideration in every business."
The group doesn't intend to lay off employees, Hughes said, but he wouldn't say whether or not the company had already cut staff positions.
Hughes said he didn't think closing the site would prevent people from getting treatment, because there are eight other locations throughout the county. Those include another location in San Jose at 625 Lincoln Ave., one in Los Gatos on Bascom Avenue and two at Good Samaritan Hospital, also in San Jose.
Pam Ewert, an X-ray technologist for more than 13 years at the Leigh Avenue acute care center, said she agreed that most patients prefer to visit their own doctors. But, she said, sometimes they aren't able to get appointments as soon as they need them.
And, Ewert said, with one less acute care facility nearby, more patients might go to hospital emergency rooms for urgent treatment.
She said it costs less for patients to visit the group's acute care centers than to visit an emergency room, which charges a higher hospital rate for service. Patients have to pay higher co-payments at emergency rooms, and the medical group will have to bear the higher cost of treatment, she said.
Hughes said he couldn't speculate on patient's behavior and wouldn't comment on how the cost of emergency room care would affect the medical group, saying, instead, "it is always better for patients to see their own physicians."
Ewert said she is also concerned that some of their mostly elderly patients, who live nearby, won't be able to make the 4.5 mile trek to the new site.
"For a lot of elderly who take the bus here, that will be difficult," Ewert said. "It's very stressful for patients used to having their own doctors and nurses."
By cutting back on the number of facilities it keeps open, Ewert said, San Jose/Good Samaritan will be able to ease its financial constraints, caused by medical insurance companies that don't reimburse treatments at a high enough rate.
"This is a general problem in a lot of medical facilities," she said.
She also cited the shortage of medical workers and the high cost of living in the Bay Area, as other causes for the group's financial squeeze.
Ewert said the center's employees were informed of the closing on April 1. Since then, she said, no one has lost their job, but there have been concerns there will be layoffs.
"There are a lot of employees who don't know if they'll have jobs," she said.
She will be moving to the company's Los Gatos location, Ewert said.
She said the Leigh Avenue center has about 60 employees and the urgent care facility sees more than 100 patients on a typical day.
"We are one of the busier sites for our company," she said. "That's why it was perplexing when they decided to close the site."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
