Senior clinic at Alaska Regional to shut in February, leaving susceptible sufferers with restricted choices for care

A longtime Anchorage medical clinic for seniors has introduced it’s closing on the finish of February, prompting concern from sufferers and suppliers about dwindling well being care choices domestically for a few of Anchorage’s most susceptible residents.

The Alaska Regional Senior Well being Clinic is considered one of few amenities in Anchorage that accepts individuals on Medicare — federal medical insurance for individuals 65 or older and sure youthful individuals with disabilities — with none limits or caps on new sufferers.

The clinic, which has served Anchorage seniors for over a decade, will shut Feb. 28, in accordance with hospital spokeswoman Kjerstin Lastufka, who cited staffing challenges as the rationale for the closure.

“We’ve been unable to maintain key positions crammed on the clinic and presently, we will now not keep clinic operations,” Lastufka wrote in an e-mail noting broader nationwide well being care employee shortages.

Whereas Lastufka declined to supply an estimate of how many individuals can be affected by the closure, a number of sufferers and suppliers interviewed for this story expressed concern that the clinic’s closure may have a big impression in a neighborhood that already has few choices for older adults who use Medicare.

Alaska’s senior inhabitants has been rising over the past decade whereas on the similar time its well being care workforce has been shrinking, as a result of an advanced mixture of financial and pandemic-related retirements and profession shifts.

“We’re involved and unhappy in regards to the lack of take care of seniors in Alaska,” mentioned Shannon Savage, chief communications and growth officer with the Anchorage Neighborhood Well being Heart. “The clinic closure itself has not brought on this drawback. Nevertheless it has highlighted this deeper underlying subject that has been right here for a lot of, a few years.”

[Alaska has long struggled with a shortage of nurses. The pandemic made it worse.]

Reached by telephone this week, a number of of the clinic’s sufferers additionally mentioned they had been annoyed by the best way the ability dealt with the closure. They mentioned that speaking with the clinic was difficult — that they had essential well being appointments canceled final minute, their calls to the clinic in current weeks went unanswered and a few nonetheless haven’t obtained discover that the clinic is closing.

Unanswered calls

On the finish of October, 69-year-old Tina Spears confirmed up for her scheduled appointment at Alaska Regional Senior Clinic, and was advised it wanted to be canceled. So she made one other appointment for the subsequent obtainable slot — in early January. “After which they known as me in January and advised me they needed to cancel that appointment too, and to name again to reschedule,” she mentioned. “And after that, I used to be by no means in a position to get by.”

The explanation for the appointment was that Spears was making an attempt out a brand new remedy, and her physician needed to assist decide whether or not the drug was benefiting her or not. With none steerage, she ultimately simply stopped taking the drug.

For Spears, probably the most irritating a part of the expertise was the dearth of communication.

“I simply stored persisting and making an attempt to get by on the road,” she mentioned. “However I wasn’t even in a position to go away them a message.”

For a full week in January, Cheryl Chapman, 76, additionally known as the clinic to get ahold of her major care supplier, whom she had been seeing for years. She wasn’t feeling properly. She says her calls went unanswered, or just wouldn’t undergo.

She felt progressively worse because the week glided by. “By the point I couldn’t breathe and went to the emergency room — that was Tuesday — I used to be fairly sick,” she mentioned.

Chapman, talking by telephone Friday whereas recovering from what ER physicians identified as pneumonia, mentioned she was deeply involved by the clinic’s closure, which she came upon about this previous week in a letter addressed to “expensive affected person.”

“We perceive that adjustments in your healthcare supplier might be troublesome,” the letter mentioned. “Please be happy to succeed in out to us with any questions.” It additionally supplied the telephone quantity for the clinic’s entrance desk, which Chapman and others mentioned that they had had little luck reaching in current days and weeks. As of Saturday, the clinic’s web site didn’t point out the closure.

Chapman doesn’t assume a month is sufficient time for a lot of sufferers to discover a new supplier, particularly with the restricted choices obtainable.

“It’s not simply the impression. It’s the timing of the impression,” she mentioned. “As a result of, you understand, if somebody mentioned to you, you bought to search out one other physician, normally what you do is you name associates. And also you say, who’s good. However there doesn’t seem like time.”

Chapman mentioned she believes the clinic’s closure “goes to be a calamity.” She cited Alaska’s rising senior inhabitants, the truth that most of the clinic’s displaced sufferers have cognitive issues and should have hassle shortly discovering a brand new supplier, and the overall shortage of suppliers in Anchorage and statewide who can settle for Medicare sufferers.

Highlighting a community-wide scarcity

Alaska’s inhabitants is on common youthful than the general inhabitants, however its retirement-age inhabitants has grown sharply lately, in accordance with state demographic information. Within the final 4 a long time, the share of Alaskans 71 and older has elevated a number of instances over, from somewhat over 1% to shut to eight%. The ensuing elevated demand could tax the state’s restricted sources.

[Alaska’s population is still younger than US but is aging at a dramatic rate]

The Alaska Regional clinic’s closure highlights an current scarcity of well being care choices in Anchorage for older adults with federal insurance coverage, in accordance with Savage, with the Anchorage Neighborhood Well being Heart.

Simply two suppliers stay within the municipality that settle for new Medicare sufferers with none cap on the variety of enrollees: Windfall Medical Group Major Care and Anchorage Neighborhood Well being, the latter which is a federally certified well being heart.

Whereas different suppliers are in a position to settle for a restricted variety of sufferers on Medicare, most can solely afford to just accept a restricted variety of these sufferers as a result of low reimbursement charges.

“Anecdotally, what we’ve heard that if a affected person is looking for care, what they largely hear is, we’re not accepting Medicare sufferers proper now,” Savage mentioned. “They wind up having to name a excessive variety of suppliers to search out somebody.”

That’s true for Jana Barlow, 66, who has been struggling to discover a new supplier in Anchorage after experiencing difficulties with Alaska Regional Senior Clinic, the place she obtained take care of greater than 4 years.

Barlow made an appointment for October, and when she arrived, she says she was advised the clinic “couldn’t accommodate her,” and rescheduled her for 10 weeks later. Two days earlier than that appointment, the clinic known as to cancel that one, too.

They advised her the subsequent obtainable appointment wasn’t for six months.

This week, Barlow has been calling suppliers throughout Anchorage to search out somebody who accepts Medicare. She mentioned she obtained 10 no’s on Wednesday alone.

“I acquired a listing right here. I maintain marking them off,” she mentioned. “It’s actually actually irritating. I’m so full of hysteria, I’m shaking. I’ve a number of well being issues, and this isn’t serving to, dropping my well being care supplier.”

Anchorage Neighborhood Well being Heart is a federally certified well being heart, which suggests it receives authorities funding to supply companies to underinsured or uninsured Alaskans, and accepts Medicare and Medicaid with out limits.

However Savage defined that for a lot of different suppliers, it may be troublesome to just accept Medicare sufferers and nonetheless make a revenue.

“Medicare has by no means been a beneficiant payer,” she mentioned. “The medicare reimbursement charges are on no account aligned with the associated fee to ship care. It’s typically instances a monetary hardship for a clinic to be a Medicare supplier.”

In an e-mail, Lastufka with Alaska Regional mentioned the rationale for the clinic closure was not prompted by monetary issues, however fairly “straight associated to the difficulties with staffing and with the ability to maintain key positions crammed.”

Scrambling to search out options

Savage mentioned she additionally spent a day this week making an attempt to name the Alaska Regional Senior Well being Clinic however was unable to get by to anybody.

Anchorage Neighborhood Well being and different suppliers are scrambling to attempt to discover neighborhood options and sources for the displaced sufferers, she mentioned. And they’re involved about their very own capability to tackle a surge of recent sufferers.

“The issue is, we aren’t a senior care clinic,” Savage mentioned. Sometimes, the clinic is ready to settle for round 200 new sufferers a month — however that features everybody, from infants to elders.

And whereas normally the wait time for brand spanking new sufferers is round two weeks, Savage mentioned she’s involved it may very well be longer if there’s an inflow of recent sufferers.

“We think about that wait will go up considerably,” she mentioned, including that it could assist to know what number of sufferers had been being displaced from Alaska Regional.

Lastufka mentioned she was “unable to present any details about affected person numbers” on the Alaska Regional clinic.

Windfall Medical Group Major Care can also be an choice for seniors who depend on Medicare, Mikal Canfield, a hospital spokesman, mentioned in an e-mail.

“Nevertheless, the variety of new sufferers is proscribed to make sure our established sufferers usually are not negatively impacted. The common wait time for brand spanking new sufferers is 21 days,” he wrote.

Savage mentioned she and others are engaged on making an attempt to place collectively a listing of different suppliers in Anchorage who’re accepting Medicare sufferers, and hopes to have extra data quickly.

“We see this as a difficulty that must be a coordinated effort,” she mentioned.

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