Physicians, hospital district embark on new partnership

Adams County Public Hospital District No. 2 and a pair of local physicians launched a brand new relationship last week as the doctors return to the hospital on a part time, structured basis to help serve the district’s patients and put an end to inflated expenses for coverage by temporary physicians.

Charles M. Sackmann, M.D. and Valerie Eckley, M.D., have signed a six month contract with the district that sets out to create a bridge between the Hometown Family Medicine physicians and the hospital district, where they were previously employed before their contracts were not renewed in 2011.

Several other physicians and a physicians assistant with previous ties to the hospital district also returned in a variety of capacities effective Oct. 1.

Physician coverage since February 2011 has been provided by Coast to Coast Healthcare Services, a firm that provided interim physician coverage at a rate of $149 per hour. That contract was severed months ago, but language in the agreement required an extended notification period. Coast to Coast Healthcare Services vacated the hospital district on the last day of September.

Beginning in October, Eckley has assumed the role of medical chief of staff. She and Sackmann will jointly supervise the district’s physician assistants — Marni Boyer, PA-C and John Valeri, PA-C.

Eckley will also provide the clinical supervision of the district’s medical clinics in Ritzville and Washtucna.

Sackmann will provide primary emergency room coverage every week on Thursday beginning at 5 p.m. until Friday at 8 a.m. when the hospital’s scheduled staff comes on shift.

Both will conduct rounds in the hospital to check on acute care patients and swing bed patients.

Gary Bostrom, the district’s CEO/CFO is pleased to be making positive progress.

“It’s a good step forward,” he said. “We went from a situation that was very difficult for anybody to get over, to both of the doctors really making a strong effort to make it all succeed. A lot of people have pushed aside their feelings to go for what they think is the best for the facility.”

Several new physician agreements have been signed, including contracts with emergency room physicians Tom Tobyn, M.D. and Scott Edminster, M.D., and physician assistant Allen Noble, PA-C.

The trio will provide three weekends of coverage for the emergency room and the Saturday walk-in clinic each month.

Bostrom also announced the signing of physician Peter Vivant, M.D., who will be working in the middle of the week in the clinic and providing overnight emergency room coverage.

“The opportunity to work with such strong, top flight emergency room physicians as Tom Tobyn and Scott Edminster is very positive,” Sackmann said. “Also, working with Marni, John and Allen, all very strong physician assistants, will be a good step forward.”

One key to the new agreements is a significant cost savings to the hospital district.

The physician coverage contracts are for $100 an hour or less and the PA agreement with Noble is for $45 an hour.

The district will save a minimum of $30,000 a month according to Bostrom’s preliminary calculations.

“I believe financially it’s going to benefit us,” he said. “The other thing is it’s more a collaboration, a cooperation and a partnership in healthcare in the community. I think it’s a step in the right direction. Again I’d love to see them both here fulltime. But that’s again my point of view of what I’d like to see. This is a real strong step in the right direction. I think we are going to continue to improve as time goes on. I don’t know how that direction will end up but I think it will end up better for the community and better for all the patients involved.”

Eckley agreed.

“We actually had the trial version that Gary Peck arranged for one week a month for the last couple of months and that worked out well,” she said. “It gave us a chance to try it and see how it was going to work out. It’s good for a couple of reasons. Obviously for financial reasons for the hospital, it being at a lower cost. I think it’s good for patients too because they get that continuity of care.”

Sackmann sees this as a healing step forward.

“It has the potential of bringing many of our patients and certainly Dr. Eckley and myself into a more interwoven relationship with our local hospital,” he said. “Mr. Bostrom is trying hard to turn the page, move to a more financially viable platform and mend as many fences as possible. We welcome this next step. As a local guy and physician, I can tell you that any steps that bring our local healthcare entities collaboratively closer will benefit us all.”

Bostrom pointed out that his outside perspective helped him identify the best possible direction to help the district regain its strength.

“I can look at it a little more objectively,” he said. “I believe because I was not involved in that part of the process here, I can look back at my past experience and good models that I have seen that make a hospital successful and I realized that local physicians, people who have grown up here and have a commitment to this community, is very unusual. It’s a perfect situation to succeed.”

The new relationship between the district and the Hometown Family Medicine physicians also serves to squelch a reoccurring rumor.

“You hear rumors that the doctors don’t want a hospital here, but the truth of the matter is both of them are strongly supportive of keeping a hospital here from what I understand from both of them,” Bostrom said. “To me that speaks very strongly of both of them.”

The hospital district’s commissioners unanimously approved the new contracts with Sackmann and Eckley during the Sept. 27 board of commissioners meeting, following a discussion in executive session.