January 15,2014
Tulare area residents will soon have a new choice of where they can get their healthcare.
Family Healthcare Network will open a health clinic in Tulare by midyear says CEO Kerry Hydash.
“We will remodel 10,000 to 12,000sf next to Palace Foods“ taking part of a building with Family Dollar. The site is on the city’s westside.
The project site is located at 263 S. West Street and currently zoned Retail Commercial (C-3). The Planning Commission of the City of Tulare will hold a public hearing on Monday, January 26, 2015
The medical facility will be full service including a dental clinic says Hydash. “We expect to open by July 1.”
The Porterville-based federally qualified health clinic continues to grow with plans for over a total of 20 locations in the works.
“We have a very dedicated staff with strong interest to serve locally” she says. Also “we have the backing of the federal government for about 9 percent of our revenue stream.”
The move is a bold one with FHCN sweeping into in Tulare, home of Tulare Regional Medical Center with a network of their own of rural health clinics. They are located in towns here not served by FHCN.
Asked his reaction to the news – former Tulare City Manager and current Tulare hospital Bond Oversight Committee member Lynn Dredge said “I can say it is not unexpected.”
“I have always believed that while business may be hurt for a while when competition comes in, competition is good and the community will be stronger because of it.”
Dredge says his committee continues to work hard to finish the tower and that their revenue stream is much stronger.
Specialty Care Too
Perhaps one of the most significant change that could come to Tulare is that the new FHCN clinic will also offer specialty care not typically available in primary care clinic.
Hydash says they plan is offer contracted care with specialty doctors like orthopedics or gynecology – advanced care that is often difficult to find currently where existing specialists often do not accept low reimbursement insurance.
The news comes as the healthcare industry undergoes rapid changes with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and digital medicine only two new factors.Two years ago some 27,000 residents of Tulare County had no insurance but today somewhere between 10,000 to 15,000 locals do have policies.
A big change in Tulare County in the past few decades has been the roll out of nonprofit community health clinics to accommodate the huge low income population in the county. That group has too often waited to get care later often resulting in many residents arriving in local ER rooms experiencing complications after leaving asthma, hypertension or diabetes untreated for years.
Once care could be accessed only through too few private doctors in the county measured at one physician for 1300 residents in the 1960s. Today over 30 community health clinics have popped up to meet the need for early intervention primary care.By 2011 the numbers were better – but still bad
Whether it’s the dirty air, extreme summer heat or too few luxury shops and cultural events, physicians don’t seem drawn to live in Tulare County.
With one doctor to serve every 925 people in 2011, Tulare County ranked 44th out of 58 counties in California for access to physicians. There were 484 physicians for 447,814 residents.
In comparison, Napa County, fifth on the list, had 464 doctors for 138,917 residents — one doctor for every 299 residents.
If in the past young doctors did not want to come to Tulare County there has been a sea change recently with several medical residency programs starting up with the hope the physicians will stay here after their residency.Both Kaweah Delta and FamilyHeathCare Network are working on this.
Family HealthCare Network is a private, non-profit community-based organization established in 1976. The organization is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors and has developed a comprehensive primary health care delivery system with federally qualified health center sites located in Porterville, Visalia, Ivanhoe, Woodlake, Springville, Three Rivers, Goshen, Hanford, Cutler–Orosi, Farmersville and Terra Bella. They also operate the Ventanilla de Salud Resource Center located in the Fresno Mexican Consulate and a Community Resource Building in the community of Porterville.
Under CEO Harry Foster, FHCN has grown from a small renovated gas station that was used as an outpatient health center in Porterville with the primary mission of serving the underserved farmworking community to a multi-site primary health care network serving over 188,000 patients from Tulare and Kings Counties.
Ms Hydash replaced Foster in 2012