PROVIDENCE – Thousands of Rhode Islanders are now searching for a new primary care provider after Anchor Medical Associates notified patients its offices are closing in June.
According to a report from WPRI-TV CBS 12, 25,000 patients, including both adults and children, will be without primary care doctors. The closure was announced to patients via a letter April 4 that was obtained by WPRI.
“The decision to close our practices has been extremely difficult, particularly against the backdrop of a shortage of primary care physicians across the state,” the letter to patients said. “While our commitment to our patients remains strong, we just cannot continue to operate in this increasingly challenging health care environment.
“We have been unable to hire replacements for our physicians who have retired over the course of the last decade – while costs continue to rise, reimbursement rates make it extremely difficult to attract new physicians to our state,” the notice continued.
The pediatric and adult medicine office on Bald Hill Road in Warwick will close on April 30, WPRI reported. Warwick providers will continue to see patients at a Lincoln office through June 30, when both the Lincoln and Providence offices will close.
The R.I. Health Department is aware of the notifications sent to Anchor’s patients, spokesperson Joseph Wendelken said, adding that regulations require a provider to give patients 90 days’ notice if a decision is made to close.
“The Rhode Island Department of Health will continue to closely monitor this situation and will have information and resources available for patients and families – including how to access health records [at the department's website],” he told WPRI.
Laura Hart, a spokesperson for Gov. Daniel J. McKee, said the governor has directed both the R.I. Department of Health and the R.I. Executive Office of Health and Human Services to conduct “talks with other health care entities who may be interested in taking on all or part of Anchor Medical’s primary care practice.”
“This would be the best solution as far as minimizing service disruption to Anchor Medical’s current patients,” Hart said.
Attorney General Peter F. Neronha told WPRI that Anchor Medical's leadership had previously reached out to him to see if he could help find a solution.
“They’re an outstanding practice that wants to continue serving the 25,000 patients that they serve,” Neronha said. “But it is financially impossible to exist in today’s Rhode Island health care marketplace as an independent primary care practice, because the revenue coming in can’t support the bottom line.
“When an outstanding primary care practice that delivers great care can’t make it, and 25,000 patients lose their doctors – if that’s not spectacular failure, I don’t know what is,” Neronha said.
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