YOUR PROVIDERS AT
Ozarks Healthcare Mountain Grove MAIN PROVIDER PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT
According to the Center for Healthcare
Quality and Payment Reform, 150 rural hospitals closed their doors nationwide between 2005 and 2019. The organiza- tion also reported that as of last summer, 600 more are in danger of following suit. Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, Alabama and Arkansas top the list of states with the highest percentage of hospitals in danger of closing, but in almost every state, at least 20 percent of rural hospitals face the same grim forecast. In the Ozarks, 10 small-town hospitals
Dr. Sarah A. Williams Stephan Yost, PA VISITING SPECIALIST Dr. Archana Sinha
BOARD-CERTIFIED CARDIOLOGIST
Provides heart care services.
have closed since 2005, and 37 percent of the state’s 57 rural hospitals fall into the threatened category. This includes two hospitals classified as being under imme- diate risk of closure. To help combat this trend, Ozarks
T
he difference, as she is quick to point out, is that she’s doing what she loves in a place she truly cares about. Marriott grew up locally — in fact, many of her patients
are former classmates or people who have known her since she was a child — and her desire to serve her hometown through medicine is something that takes the edge off of even the busiest, most hectic day. “I was pretty much born and raised here,” she said. “I love practicing in my hometown because I’m so invested in the community. “It’s really cool to me that we can get to know our patients here, that we know their mom is this person and their grandma is that person, or they work here or there. It’s really just providing that community-based healthcare. It’s really nice whenever the patient comes in, and they’ve seen the same person and nurses over the last seven years. You can’t really say that for most hospitals.” Throughout America, small towns are in big trouble when it comes to healthcare.
Changing economics, inability to attract physicians and nurses and shrinking reim- bursement rates have already doomed many rural hospitals with continued fallout from COVID threatening the ones left standing.
“
... being a walk-in clinic is so important. We know that if we weren’t here, many patients simply wouldn’t bother seeking medical attention.
Dr. Sarah Williams, Ozarks Healthcare Mountain Grove 18 | OZARKS HEALTHCARE | FALL/WINTER 2022 ”
Healthcare maintains a robust system of clinics that provide crucial primary care and, in many cases, a rotating sched- ule of specialists serving the communi- ties where the clinics are located as well as drawing from surrounding counties. Making the clinics go are medical profes- sionals such as Marriott who left Ozarks Healthcare’s West Plains hospital for the immediacy and familiarity of practicing small-town medicine. “I consider family practice as the heart and soul of the medical field,” she said. “I just wanted to be able to establish those close relationships with my patients and see them throughout their lifetime rath- er than just get a glimpse of them during their hospital stay.” In total, Ozarks Healthcare operates 11 clinics, four of which are in West Plains with the remaining seven set in small towns like Mountain View, Thayer, and Mountain Grove. In each of these outly- ing areas, the story is generally the same — serving an aging, sicker population who, if they didn’t have the clinic, would be facing a long drive for diagnosis and treatment, if they decided to go at all. “I definitely feel like we have a differ-
ent type of patient compared to West Plains,” said Dr. Sarah Williams of Ozarks Healthcare Mountain Grove. “A lot of people out here don’t want to travel too far for their medical care. Sometimes they don’t even want to travel to West Plains to see specialists or when they really should be admitted to a hospital. You give them their options — either go to the hospital
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