A month from now, Alii Health Center and its doctors will be welcoming patients into new digs at Keauhou Shopping Center.
“We hope, barring any unforeseen construction issues, to be up and open for everything except X-ray June 25,” said Executive Director Debra Sundberg Thursday.
Those unforeseen circumstances could be any number of things that come up when a health clinic consolidates five offices into two suites, as well as has its contractor and construction crew gut and rebuild office space to accommodate doctors, nurses, administrative staff and equipment.
By the time Alii Health Center unveils its new logo and opens its doors, the 8,400-square-feet of office space — up from the 5,600-square-feet the center now occupies — may be completely full. Sundberg said the center has hired a urologist, James Nelson III from Oahu, and recently offered contracts to a new orthopedic surgeon and an obstetrician/gynecologist.
“We’ve worked very hard the last year and a half to turn Alii Health around,” Sundberg said. “Now it’s time for us to grow.”
The center has been “very aggressive” in pursuing doctors and expanding clinic space, she added. Taking on an obstetrician would be a long-term commitment, one that has led Sundberg to begin talking to Kona Community Hospital about whether the hospital would allow privileges to a midwife if Alii Health hired one to assist a new obstetrician.
Hiring an obstetrician comes with a different set of financial expectations than a surgeon, Sundberg said. A surgeon can perform operations the first day on the job, and begin collecting payments and reimbursements immediately. An obstetrician takes on patients on the first day and may not collect payment for seven or eight months, after the patient’s baby is born, Sundberg said.
Typically, the center expects a doctor to take about two years to work toward “self-sufficiency” and financial stability, she added. But a primary care doctor, which can be difficult to find in West Hawaii, may never reach that point, Sundberg said. The center’s primary care physicians are subsidized by the state. The center, which is part of the Hawaii Health Systems Corp., gets $600,000 in subsidies annually.
“We are functioning well within that,” Sundberg said.
Consolidating offices, even by expanding square footage, will save the center money, Sundberg said. Right now, the center pays five electricity bills, each with a separate base charge, five telephone bills, also each with a separate base rate. They run five check-in stations. They’ve kept staffing levels low, Sundberg said, so no one will lose a job when the office move happens. The center is actually hiring office staff, including a radiology technician to run the new radiology program.
Every specialty the center adds decreases some of the dependence on the state’s subsidy.
“If we want to build primary care, I need to build specialties first,” Sundberg said.
Once the new office has opened, Alii Health is planning a blessing and grand opening, possibly in July.
Alii Health is a subsidiary of Hawaii Health Systems Corp., the state health system. The center is a private 501(c)(3), with a separate governing board from Kona Community Hospital. Center officials work both with their own board and the health center board.