ARCHIVED  February 26, 2010

Why did the doctors cross the road?

WINDSOR – A group of doctors in Windsor is joining the Greeley Medical Clinic family by moving across the street on March 1.

The physicians – Egle Bakanauskas, MD, Keith Rangel, MD, Robert Bradley III, MD, Michael Carey, MD, and Robert Nystrom, DO – will begin practicing at Windsor Medical Clinic after practicing as the independent Family Physicians of Windsor for 11 years.

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Greeley Medical Clinic owns the Windsor Medical Clinic, which operates in the Windsor Medical Center at 1455 Main St. Family Physicians had been leasing space in the Banner-owned Medical Arts Centre of Windsor at 1300 Main St.

So why move an entire medical practice just across the street?

Family Physicians had been operating under a management contract with Banner Health as well as leasing space in the Medical Arts Centre under a 10-year lease and a one-year extension. When the lease ran out, the doctors chose to affiliate instead with the independent Greeley Medical Clinic and Banner cancelled the lease, according to Troy Simon, GMC CEO.

“When the FPW physicians chose to join GMC, Banner chose to cancel their space lease in the Medical Arts Centre, even though we wanted to keep them in that space,” Simon said.

Simon said when the lease was cancelled, Poudre Valley Health System offered to renovate its Windsor building to accommodate the new clinic.

“PVHS has been very supportive of GMC and the FPW physicians by renovating the space in their building to customize it to the needs of FPW and GMC,” he said. “PVHS never once hesitated in committing their support to our physicians, our group and ultimately, our physicians’ patients from in and around Windsor.”

Service agreement stumble

Banner Health spokesman Gene Haffner said the physician move was less about a cancellation of a lease and more about Family Physicians of Windsor not wanting to renew a medical services agreement with Banner.

“Family Physicians of Windsor was an independent practice in the community and we worked with them to enter into a medical services agreement in 1998,” Haffner said. “It was a 10-year agreement that expired in 2009 and we worked with them to extend that agreement for one year to Feb. 28, 2010.”

Phoenix-based Banner Health owns McKee Medical Center in Loveland and has a contract to operate North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley. Haffner said Banner has been following a “physician-employed model” that requires local medical groups to be employed by Banner, citing Big Thompson Medical Group in Loveland as one example.

“As we talked with the physicians in Windsor about the model we’ve been pursuing, it included an expectation of them becoming employed in the Medical Arts Centre,” he said. “They decided to remain independent practitioners through an affiliation with the Greeley Medical Clinic.”

Haffner said it’s not been decided if the name “Family Physicians of Windsor” will continue to be used at the Medical Arts Centre after March 1. “Whether or not the physicians who join us in the future are called Family Physicians of Windsor has not yet been determined,” he said.

Haffner said he hoped the Family Physicians of Windsor doctors will continue to exercise their privileges at NCMC. “All of these physicians have been on the medical staff at NCMC and we’ve had the benefit of their skills and we hope that will continue,” he said.

Haffner said patient visits at the Medical Arts Centre of Windsor after March 1 will be covered by doctors from other Banner physician clinics. He said an announcement about new doctors to staff the center will be made within the month.

Simon said the new GMC clinic will be about the same size space as the Family Physicians of Windsor space but will also include full laboratory services.

Simon said physicians at the new GMC clinic in the Windsor Medical Center will be able to have the independent practice they were seeking.

“That was a key piece in discussing it with the physicians and very probably why they chose us,” he said. “We will support them whether they send their patients to Banner facilities or PVHS facilities.”

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Who ya gonna call? Don’t worry about it

WINDSOR – A group of doctors in Windsor is joining the Greeley Medical Clinic family by moving across the street on March 1.

The physicians – Egle Bakanauskas, MD, Keith Rangel, MD, Robert Bradley III, MD, Michael Carey, MD, and Robert Nystrom, DO – will begin practicing at Windsor Medical Clinic after practicing as the independent Family Physicians of Windsor for 11 years.

Greeley Medical Clinic owns the Windsor Medical Clinic, which operates in the Windsor Medical Center at 1455 Main St. Family Physicians had been leasing space in the Banner-owned Medical Arts Centre of Windsor at 1300…

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