A local health care provider made the tough call to close two of its offices despite receiving $2.7 million in federal aid.
Before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Johnson County-based Windrose Health Network had seven offices devoted to patient care in three Indiana counties, with offices in Franklin, Trafalgar, Whiteland, Edinburgh, Indianapolis and Hope.
In mid-March, when COVID-19 began to hit Indiana hard, doctors made the necessary adjustments to shift to a telehealth model, and had to temporarily close five offices to patients, said Scott Rollett, CEO of Windrose.
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For the first three months of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s stay home order, the health care provider saw its patient volume cut in half while doctors and patients struggled to adapt to the new model, Rollett said.
By June, the state started to reopen, and more patients started making appointments, many of them for in-person visits. Offices have had a full schedule of appointments, but precautions against COVID-19 forced them to serve fewer patients in 30-minute time blocks, he said.
Today, patient volume is about 20% lower than the provider would typically see, forcing its leaders to close its office in Whiteland and its Edinburgh location to patient care, Rollett said.
Both the low volumes and uncertainty about when the virus will wane drove the decision, he said.
“It is better (now), but this is ultimately why we decided to have the small reduction in force,” Rollett said. “And I don’t know what the duration will be (of the pandemic). People thought this would burn itself out in the summer, but here we are almost in August and the numbers keep going up.”
The Whiteland office will permanently close today, but Rollett hopes to reopen the Edinburgh office in 2021, if financial conditions improve, he said. The Edinburgh office is currently open only for COVID-19 testing.
“It was unfortunate (we had to close) but, just like every business, we had to make choices to serve the highest number of patients we have,” he said.
Most of the employees from the offices were offered positions at other Windrose locations, but seven were let go, Rollett said. A handful of others left for other coronavirus-related reasons, such as lack of childcare or a desire to step back from the frontlines, he said. The company’s workforce was 177 in mid-March. Today, it is 165.
Windrose received $65,000 from an initial federal coronavirus aid package, Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations (CPRSA) Act, which gave a boost to health care providers on the frontlines of the virus. The initial money gave the company enough to maintain operations in April, but it was only a start, Rollett said.
As more aid was announced from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act , Windrose went after any funding it could to help keep the company going and improve services, so far receiving $2.7 million.
Most of the company’s aid came from the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided $1.8 million, enough to pay employees for three months.
Other aid was for specific patient care purposes, such as $390,724 to buy a mobile COVID-19 testing unit, and $223,720 to upgrade telehealth capabilities.
More than the money, the dedication of employees has kept the company afloat the past few months, Rollett said. Doctors, medical staff and office employees have all shown dedication to patients and have done so under trying conditions, he said.
Windrose offered a few services via telehealth, such as behavioral health and psychiatric services, before COVID-19. But for primary care doctors, telehealth was a crash course, he said.
Primary care providers were skeptical that telehealth could work for primary care because seeing and touching patients is necessary to do some parts of the job, such as checking vitals and looking inside an ear, Rollett said. So, when absolutely necessary, patients were able to come in for an exam at one of the offices that stayed open.
If there is a silver lining to the big changes the medical profession saw, it was a realization that telehealth can work for many patients. Even past the pandemic, Rollett plans to keep offering telehealth for those who prefer it.
“Primary care is unique because we treat all ages; we have 45 year olds and 95 year olds. We have to adjust to meet all age groups,” he said. “Younger patients don’t necessarily want that face to face visit; they want to see patients on their laptop or their phone.”
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Here is a look at aid awarded to Windrose Health Network to retain employees, respond to the coronavirus pandemic and establish telehealth and COVID-19 testing services.
CPRSA funding: $65,245
CARES funding
Paycheck Protection Program: $1.8 million
COVID-19 Telehealth Program grant: $223,720
Expanded Capacity for Testing (ECT) grant: $390,724
Provider Relief Fund: $278,211
Sources: Windrose Health; U.S. Health and Human Services; Federal Communications Commission.
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