REGION: PPH to open store-based clinics in Oceanside, Temecula, San Elijo Hills
Tri-City executive cries foul
By PAUL SISSON – NC TIMES
Oceanside, San Marcos and Temecula are on the radar for expansion of Palomar Pomerado’s grocery store-based “Expresscare” clinics. The public hospital district’s governing board unanimously approved the locations during a regular meeting Monday night. All three locations are outside the boundaries of Palomar Pomerado’s health care district, and that fact did not sit well with Larry Anderson, CEO of Tri-City Medical Center, whose public district includes Oceanside, Vista and Carlsbad.
Anderson said he would ask Tri-City’s board for permission to sue Palomar Pomerado on the grounds that putting a clinic in Oceanside is against California health and safety code.
“I will take legal action if my board permits me,” Anderson said. Teresa Fleege, a spokeswoman for Southwest Health Care Systems, the main health care provider in the Temecula area, reserved comment until after Palomar Pomerado’s board made its decision.
Michael Covert, CEO of Palomar Pomerado Health, said he believes that the additional clinics are allowed, due to a recent change in the health care code that Anderson cited. A section of that code does state that public health care districts such as Palomar Pomerado and Tri-City are allowed to own property “within and without the limits of the district.”
“Actually, districts have been able to do this for a couple of years,” Covert said. PPH currently operates two small clinics inside Albertsons grocery stores on East Valley Parkway in Escondido and on Penasquitos Drive in Rancho Penasquitos.
The clinics, which are staffed by a nurse practitioner, offer basic medical services for a fee. Patients can choose from a “menu” of services; for example, $59 will buy a bronchitis treatment or a school physical exam. Covert, who said the additional clinics likely would be inside Albertsons stores, said expanding to Oceanside, Temecula and the San Elijo Hills neighborhood of San Marcos makes sense because Palomar Pomerado gets many referrals from those areas, even though it is not technically inside the hospital district’s boundaries. READ MORE via REGION: PPH to open store-based clinics in Oceanside, Temecula, San Elijo Hills.
