The co-founder of Smart Infusion Therapy Services in Eau Claire says the business is experiencing an “avalanche” of patient demand following the news that two western Wisconsin hospitals are shutting down.
Hospital Sisters Health System last week said it will be closing HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls, while physician network Prevea Health is also closing all of its locations in the state’s western region. The moves will impact 1,082 HSHS workers and 325 Prevea employees, according to the announcement.
Eric Haberichter, chief marketing officer and co-founder of the infusion therapy provider, yesterday said the Eau Claire clinic has been getting phone calls from worried patients as well as physicians that are being impacted by the closures.
“Suddenly there are patients that are on biologics for things like multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease are finding out that their next appointment just can’t be scheduled,” Haberichter told WisBusiness.com. “So [doctors] are calling us, and trying very quickly to move their patient practice, in some cases, 30, 40, 50 patients … in other cases, it’s just concerned patients and family members.”
As a local resident, Haberichter says the community is “very deeply impacted” by the change, with many people fearing they may not have a doctor anymore.
The infusion clinic is already seeing a significant uptick in the number of patients whose care is being transferred there, he added. Its founders have been involved in medical imaging for decades, but began providing infusion services starting in Eau Claire a little more than a year ago, according to Haberichter.
While the business had previously been seeing a handful of patients per week, that’s expected to jump to as many as 50 per week, he said.
“It’s a massive increase in demand for us that we always anticipated, it’s just happening in kind of an avalanche of patients that are looking for care,” he said. “We just feel very privileged that we were positioned in such a way to take on that patient volume.”
That population ranges from young people coming in for treatments for Crohn’s disease to older patients on Medicare receiving iron therapy, he said, adding that hundreds of Medicare patients have been displaced by the closures.
In the HSHS announcement last week, Prevea President and CEO Dr. Ashok Rai acknowledged the impact of the move on local patients. He said Prevea and HSHS are “focused on ensuring continuity of care for patients as well as helping them transition their care to other area hospitals and providers.”
In a statement yesterday, an HSHS spokesperson said the health system’s top priority is patient safety and continuity of care.
“We are working to ensure that patients are aware of the alternative options available to them and that there are no interruptions in their access to health care,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Haberichter said the Eau Claire clinic is “as prepared as possible” to address the spike in demand, and can bring in workers from its locations in Madison and Wausau if necessary. The Eau Claire clinic has eight staff members, and 30 employees are involved in the infusion services business across the three centers.
“The biggest obstacle that anyone in our position faces is making certain we have insurance coverage for all the patients,” he said. “Some of the larger insurance companies are very slow to adopt new providers, and that’s really our single largest struggle now, is making certain we have authorization for treatment which is going to maintain the lowest possible costs for patients.”
–By Alex Moe
