It seems to be a fact of life that bad news filters through to everyone and sinks in deeper than good news does. So, Eastern Plumas Health Care\u2019s battle with the state of California to save its skilled nursing facilities\u2014which, by implication put our entire hospital and community under threat\u2014spread like wild fire. Our ongoing battle has been watched closely, and the community has come together to fight these cuts in a way that should make us all proud.
\nBut, in the aftermath when we say, \u201cOur hospital will not close. Our skilled nursing facilities will take fewer patients, but both facilities are still strong\u2014and they will continue to thrive,\u201d many people don\u2019t seem to hear us. I wouldn\u2019t make a statement like the one above if I didn\u2019t believe it completely. I\u2019ll say it again\u2014\u201cWe will not close! The hospital won\u2019t close, our skilled nursing won\u2019t close, our community will not fall.\u201d
\n That is, of course, unless our residents so thoroughly convince themselves that we are going to close that they stop using our services. This mindset could become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you can\u2019t have a hospital, 4 medical clinics, 1 dental clinic, nursing facilities, a lab, imaging services, a 24 hour physician staffed ER, and a round the clock ambulance service unless patients use our services.
\nI\u2019d suggest that our community members began saying, \u201cOur hospital is here to stay. All of the big organizations, like the California Hospital Association, that vowed to stop the cuts through legislation, were unsuccessful. But, this little hospital has figured out a way to survive, just like it has every time it\u2019s been threatened in the past.\u201d Because, we\u2019ve done just that\u2014we\u2019ve figured out a budget we can live with.
\nSome staff positions have been consolidated, and department heads have been asked to trim their budgets even more\u2014making sure they cut all non-essential supplies as much as possible. The skilled nursing facilities have gone from a high of 67 residents between the Loyalton and Portola facilities, to a current target of 24 residents per facility. And, to tell the truth, the fact that patients, families, and community supporters fought so hard in both communities to keep their facilities made an impact on our decision to fight on our end to keep both sites open. As our Chief Financial Officer, Jeri Nelson, said, \u201cWe all agree that these cuts are tough, but we are tougher.\u201d
\nIn addition, we are still waiting to hear from the CA Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) whether we will receive an exemption from these cuts based on the research we provided them proving our frontier and sole community provider status. While DHCS hasn\u2019t been able to give us details, we know our request has been moved up the ladder, and we\u2019ve received some positive signals from them.
\nAside from that, however, I believe we\u2019re responding with flexibility and an understanding, both of the direction the state is going, and of the needs of our community. We are working to ensure that our clinics and emergency services are the best they can be. And, we are increasing our focus on services that acknowledge the specific needs of our communities. We have and will continue to increase our specialty services, especially those such as Cardiology, Dermatology, Neurology, Othropedics, and Podiatry.
\nIn addition, we have expanded our services for low income and Medi-Cal patients, because we know that particularly in times like these, our community members need our help as much as we need theirs. We offer a comprehensive Medicare Wellness Program with many free to the patient lab tests and screenings, including colon, breast, and prostate cancer screenings, diabetes screenings, and more. We provide year-round low-cost lab testing and, currently, a lab ($40) and a digital mammography ($80) cash special that we hope makes essential testing available to everyone who needs it.
\nFinally, I\u2019m very excited that we have embraced telemedicine services for this community. We now offer many specialists via our encrypted, high-speed telemedicine video connection. This allows our patients to stay at their home clinic rather than be forced to drive long distances and wait for long periods for appointments. Also, our Telemedicine Coordinator facilitates the visit for each clinic patient, and for many specialties, there is also a Family Nurse Practitioner or doctor working with the patient on our end.
\nSpecialties include: Cardiology, Dermatology, Diabetes Education, Diabetic Retinopathy Screening, Endocrinology (Diabetes, Thyroid Conditions), Internal Medicine , Nephrology, Neurology, Oncology (Cancer), Pediatric Emergency\/Critical Care, Psychology Counseling, Psychiatry, Pulmonology, and Rheumatology. While patients are initially skeptical about \u201cseeing\u201d a doctor over video, once they try it, we\u2019ve found patients to be overwhelmingly positive about the experience.
\nIn many cases, our Telemedicine Specialists ensure that patients who might otherwise not seek the care they need, or for whom travel would be far more than an inconvenience, get the best quality care available. We are the only medical facility in Plumas or Sierra Counties that offers essential retinopathy screenings to diabetes patients on Medi-Cal, for example. We\u2019re very proud of the fact that all of our diabetic patients\u2019 retinal images are read by top Opthalmologists at University of California, Berkeley.
\nOur Oncology patients receive their follow up care via telemedicine and are seen by top nationally rated Oncologists at Tahoe Forest Cancer Center and UC Davis. Now these patients, some of whom are receiving chemo and\/or radiation therapies, don\u2019t have to travel winding mountain roads for their care, and add to that, dangerous, icy roads in winter. Now, patients who might not be able to afford to travel, can come to our clinics and receive the best possible care.
\nWe are strong, hearty people\u2014those who have lived for generations in our community, especially. If we chose to believe our hospital and community will survive then, quite simply, that will be the truth. It\u2019s also true that if our residents use our clinics and other services, they\u2019ll ensure that our emergency room and ambulance service will be here when they need us the most.
\nWe\u2019re doing everything we can on our end. I would ask that you do yours. Pass the word to friends, family, and neighbors that we will be open, that we will survive, and that we\u2019ll thrive. If you\u2019ve had good experiences in our hospital, ER, or clinic, pass that on too. If you\u2019ve had a less than positive experience\u2014let me or my staff know so that we can make things better. More than anything use our services when you need health care.
\n\tBecause, in the end, whether we survive or not depends on you.<\/p>\n
Tom Hayes, CEO, Eastern Plumas Health Care<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems to be a fact of life that bad news filters through to everyone and sinks in deeper than good news does. So, Eastern Plumas Health Care\u2019s battle with the state of California to save its skilled nursing facilities\u2014which, by implication put our entire hospital and community under threat\u2014spread like wild fire. Our ongoing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}