By Liz Cloutman
The Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) will not accept new primary care patients at its Palo Alto, Los Altos, Fremont and Redwood Shores locations for an indefinite period of time, officials announced last week.
Staff physicians in family practice, internal medicine and pediatrics expressed their concern that additional patients could adversely affect the quality care currently provided for members of the medical group. A number of physicians are reaching retirement age and recruiting additional staff has been difficult because of a critical shortage of medical professionals in Northern California.
“We thought long and hard about this and made the choice reluctantly,” said Dr. David Hooper, the senior administrator for PAMF, which has treated a total of 202,000 patients in all its medical departments over the past two years. “We are concerned that there are thousands of people who may be forced to look for new sources of health care in our community following the closing of several medical groups and Stanford Hospital’s decision to end its HMO contracts. Unfortunately … our staff of physicians and nurses are fully committed with our present patients. Our physicians are concerned that they may not be able to continue to provide high-quality, timely care to our current patients if we suddenly add more patients to their practices.”
All medical specialty departments, such as obstetrics and gynecology, sports medicine and behavioral health are still accepting new patients, said Jill Antonides, director of public relations for PAMF’s department of public affairs. “Also, anyone who’s visited (a primary care physician) even once before may still make an appointment,” she said.
Antonides also cited the large number of retiring physicians and difficulty recruiting young physicians, nurses and support personnel as the reasons for the medical foundation’s current problems in expanding its staff.
“New doctors don’t want to start out here because of the expense of living in the area,” she said. “There’s a severe nursing shortage. (Also) California, in general, pays lower wages than elsewhere.”
Hooper noted that while “we can’t increase our staff quickly enough, we will continue … to provide the best care and service we can to each and every one of our current patients - as we always have - no matter what type of insurance they have.”
Palo Alto Medical Foundation, founded in 1930, is the oldest multispeciality medical group in California, according to Antonides. Its Los Altos branch is located on Distel Circle.
