PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center will avert the primary-care health crisis threatened by the impending sale of Virginia Mason’s Eighth Street clinic by supporting the clinic’s family physicians with an independent group contract starting next spring.
Under the plan, primary-care doctors will remain in their current building at 433 E. Eighth St., to be renamed the Port Angeles Clinic.
The change is expected to be complete by April 30.
Olympic Medical Center also will extend the arrangement to private family practitioners, allaying their fears of unfair competition from the hospital.
Doctors new to the community also will be eligible to join.
Although “there is lots of work to be done, lots of details to be ironed out,” hospital CEO Mike Glenn said Wednesday, the solution has the preliminary approval of Virginia Mason Medical Center, the doctors at its clinic and private providers.
The proposal will allow doctors to contract for space, staff and support services — separately or as a “full-meal deal” — from Olympic Medical Center through a management services organization.