Harrison
Port Orchard Urgent Care will reduce evening
hours this fall in response to complaints regarding long wait
times and understaffing.
The new clinic hours will be 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. daily, beginning Oct. 31, according to a letter sent to CHI Franciscan Health patients. The clinic is currently open 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
According to the letter: “This change will ensure that three providers are in clinic during all business hours, which will improve access to our providers and decrease the time patients spend in the waiting room.”
CHI Franciscan spokesman Scott Thompson said the clinic saw an average of 8 patients between the hours of 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.
“We are much busier during the day,” Thompson said.
South Kitsap patients needing care overnight will have to travel to an emergency department in Bremerton, Gig Harbor or Silverdale. CHI Franciscan Health also offers virtual urgent care 24 hours a day.
The Port Orchard clinic was originally open 24 hours a day. CHI Franciscan eliminated overnight hours at the urgent care in 2015.
The full letter to patients is posted below:
PO.urgent.hours by Tad Sooter on Scribd
According to the letter: “This change will ensure that three providers are in clinic during all business hours, which will improve access to our providers and decrease the time patients spend in the waiting room.”
Cutting hours to improve service, huh?
My daughter received care there (if you can call it that) a few years ago. There was not one doctor on duty–only nurses. After the sub care, Franciscan sent a bill and billed as an emergency room copay and not urgent care. Billing staff was very rude so had to get the attorney general involved to sort it out. Avoid that place at all costs. You won’t get any help there!
Yet another demonstration of the influence of big business control and not local control. If CNI is serving such a low number of people between 7 and 11pm, then why the complaints of long wait times. It seems their business model is tweaked the wrong way.
Hey Jim,
This is the rationale as I understand it:
The clinic is busy during the daytime and patients experience long waits. The clinic isn’t busy at all in the late evening hours.
By cutting late evening hours, CHI can increase staffing during the busy daytime hours and reduce wait times.
They, Franciscan, are now a monopoly on the Peninsula, since they were allowed to purchase Harrison, and that’s how monopolies work. Less service, at a higher price – and for them, it’s tax free, as a church owned entity.