Clinic receives letter of intent from Bellingham urgent care center

Dr. Mae Lary and Dr. Sean Bozorgzadeh, left, meet with the Point Roberts hospital district board of commissioners and superintendent Barbara Wayland in the community center’s former library room on September 14.

Residents concerned about the future of the Point Roberts health clinic can stop holding their breath – a letter of intent with Super Track, a Bellingham-based urgent care center, was announced during a hospital district board of commissioners meeting on September 14. The goal is to have the clinic switch to the new health provider by January 2, 2019.

Super Track Urgent Care PLLC is owned by Dr. Sean Bozorgzadeh and Dr. Mae Lary; the Bellingham clinic is located on Lakeway Drive and is open seven days a week. Bozorgzadeh’s previous clinical experience includes family medicine and emergency care while Lary’s involved oncology and internal medicine.

The hospital district had received a proposal from Super Track dated September 10 laying out the company’s philosophy, a proposed schedule and an initial budget showing anticipated revenue and costs in the first year. Super Track expects to eke out a net income of $1,888 in 2019.

Commissioner Falk told the duo that it was great to see their proposal and asked how the Point Roberts clinic fit in with their current operation. “We don’t see anything new to us, but I can see bringing in things that would be new to Point Roberts,” Lary replied.

The clinic’s days of operation would expand from the current three days a week to six days, although just three days would be staffed by a physician or nurse practitioner. The other three days there would be a medical assistant (MA) who could administer care under the guidance of a medical provider. “As far as being new to us, we are both seasoned professionals, well over 12 years’ of care in different areas,” she said.

The clinic will accept call-in and walk-in patients as well as appointments and intend to offer tele-medicine, a feature of their Bellingham clinic. District superintendent Barbara Wayland advised the APB that, “An MA is someone who is trained to do the initial check-in activities, e.g. vital signs, urinalysis or fingerstick blood sugar if needed, etc. They cannot prescribe, but under the direction of a provider via a telemedicine link, where the provider sees the patient and can talk directly to the patient and the MA, treatment and medication can be ordered.”

Bozorgzadeh, who received his medical degree from the University of British Columbia, is also an adjunct professor of computer science. “Our goal is to be as technologically advanced as possible,” he said.

Lary grew up in Tampa, Florida and completed her medical education and internal medicine residency at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, now known as the Morsani College of Medicine. She completed a fellowship in the hematology/oncology department at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Swedish Hospital and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Board chair Dick Williams told the doctors that he believes that patients are concerned about the faces that they see at the clinic, alluding to the question as whether the current staff would stay on. In response, Lary said, “I know you are all aware that the profit and loss statement doesn’t look good,” adding they couldn’t guarantee that all employees would stay on. “Our goal is to keep as many of those ‘faces’ as possible.”

Lary added that there was too many staff for the current number of patients.

The staff are actually employees of UnityCare NW, the current health provider for the clinic. According to Wayland, “Unity has said they would have positions for them if they wanted to continue after the contract ends, but the staff have no obligation to Unity once the contract ends. No commitments have been made, but Sean and Mae want to maintain as much continuity as possible. … They said to me they would like to talk with the staff about staying on.”

The transfer of patient records from Unity Care to Super Track could be a possible holdup to the January 2, 2019 change-over. Unity Care and Super Track use different recordkeeping companies which could slow down the transfer. “That part is out of our control,” Bozorgzadeh said. “The ideal thing is to have everything transferred ahead of time.”

Amidst discussion of possible additions to patient care such as home care, Bozorgzadeh was optimistic but cautious. “We don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver; we’d rather under-promise and over-deliver,” he said.