HOSPITAL
UPDATES
East Carroll Parish Hospital’s clinic continues to wrestle with patient confusion over appointments with their medical providers, Ladonna Englerth, East Carroll Parish Hospital administrator, reported to the hospital board this month.
Englerth said there was no confusion when the medical providers had their own physical locations, but now that various clinics are under one roof and one name, patients seem skittish about seeing other providers if their primary care doctor is unavailable.
“When Amy Hale was at Family Medical Clinic, and took a day off, the patients who went there still came in if they needed to see someone and they saw the people that worked as part of that team. The same is true about the patients who visited Dr. Simon at Family Practice Clinic. And we want them to know that it’s still the same. Those teams are still in place. If you are a patient that Amy has been seeing for years, we are not trying to make you see Dr. Simon or vice versa. They both still have their team that you can see even when they are not there instead of waiting until they return if they are off for a few days,” said Englerth.
The hospital has hired two new nurse practitioners in the past few years, Kelly Ratliff and Savannah Fortenberry, and recently brought aboard Dr. Dana Pippin. Englerth encourages everyone to give these medical providers a chance, just as they did when Amy Hale joined Family Medical Clinic, despite the fact that most of the patients there at the time had been used to only seeing Dr. Bailey.
“It’s a challenge to get patients to see faces other than those they have been used to for years, and we have taken that into account. That is why, when we moved everyone into one building, we still kept the teams in place that had been in place in the previous locations. The Family Medical Clinic, Family Practice Clinic, Family Practice Pediatric and KidMed teams are still in place, but we have had to bring on new people and place them in these practices and we are asking our patients to give them a chance and to understand that everything we are doing is to provide you with the best possible care,” said Englerth.
