Thursday, March 28, 2024

Lake Chelan Health adds primary care to clinic

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CHELAN - With the fast-growing Lake Chelan Valley community, we recognized the need for more primary care services.

The 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment data and extended wait times to get in to see a primary care provider (PCP) shows the need for additional primary care doctors in the Lake Chelan Valley.

Primary health care addresses the health needs of patients at the community level, integrating care, prevention, health awareness and education. Primary health care helps improve the performance of health systems by lowering nonemergent emergency room visits that are best cared for in the doctor’s office. Continuity of care is the heart of general practice and providing patients with continuity shows to have better healthcare outcomes, higher satisfaction and the cost to receive care is more cost-effective.

Doctor Charles Waszkewitz is a board-certified family physician who has practiced in the Lake Chelan Valley since 1987. He has returned to the Lake Chelan Health Clinic, currently at 219 East Johnson Avenue in downtown Chelan, to help open primary care services.

Doctor Waszkewitz is seeing previous patients and new patients in the clinic on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

Doctor Waszkewitz plans to stay with Lake Chelan Health for at least a year to help the team grow primary care services, recruit other primary care doctors and physician assistants interested in primary care. With the recruitment of additional providers, it will help the clinic expand its primary care hours and reduce the wait time to see a PCP. Doctors will work closely with a trained primary care physician assistant who will also be able to see patients when the doctor is not available. A primary care doctor and physician assistant team improves access to care, patient satisfaction and better health outcomes.

If you currently do not have a primary care doctor and would like to establish care with the Lake Chelan Health Primary Care clinic, please call our Express Care walk-in clinic at 509-682-8511.

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