By CHRISTINE HAINES
[email protected]
The UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute is closing its Monongahela office as of April 30, leaving patients with difficult choices to make.
Linda Zuza of Monongahela is one of those patients, as is her mother.
“She’s 97 years old. I don’t want her to have to go to someone else,” Zuza said. “The big thing is the confidence in the doctor and the doctor knowing you.”
That will mean driving 17 miles to the new office in White Oak in order to continue seeing the same doctor, but Zuza has questions about what will happen if her mother needs hospital care, since her cardiologist will no longer be working out of Monongahela Valley Hospital in Carroll Township.
“It’s hard enough when you are admitted to the hospital. If your doctor isn’t there you just get a hospitalist who doesn’t know you,” Zuza said.
Zuza has been trying to find a way to keep the Monongahela office open, but said she had a hard time even finding someone with UPMC who didn’t just transfer her call to someone else.
“I can’t believe they are doing this to us, just shutting the whole office down,” Zuza said. “What happened to keeping it in the Mon Valley? You can’t always go to Pittsburgh.”
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health press office, the move doesn’t fall under the state’s jurisdiction. State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, said the only real recourse appears to be contacting UPMC officials.
“There is nothing legislatively to keep it from happening,” Bartolotta said. “There is no recourse to force a hospital system to keep specialists at a facility.”
The response from UPMC directs patients to one of the health system’s other HVI centers.
“The UPMC Heart & Vascular Institute (HVI) Mon Valley office located at 1290 Chess Street, Monongahela, PA 15063, will be consolidating services with our other HVI locations, including HVI White Oak. This change will allow us to more effectively leverage available resources to serve our patients throughout the region,” said UPMC Media Relations specialist Sheila Davis.
“UPMC is committed to providing leading cardiovascular care to patients in the Mon Valley and surrounding communities. Patients can access care at any convenient UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute location.”
Those offices are located in White Oak, Monroeville, West Mifflin and Bethel Park. Most of the doctors currently in Monongahela will be going to the White Oak location, which is 17 miles and 34 minutes away from the current office. The West Mifflin location is slightly closer at 16 miles and 23 minutes. Bridgeville is the farthest at a distance of 28 miles and a commute of 39 minutes from the current office location.
Zuza said it’s not just the length of the drive.
“Part of it is transportation,” Zuza said. “That’s a big thing for people in their 80s and 90s, and the doctors aren’t even going to be in the Mon Valley. People are maybe not going to go to the cardiologist again.”
Bartolotta said public transportation is a significant issue for Mon Valley residents, saying it wasn’t that long ago that Freedom Transportation put in a bus route that allowed riders to get from Monongahela to the county seat in Washington without first having to go through Pittsburgh. Bartolotta said the hours of transportation also tend to be limiting, even if transportation is available to a location because most services end by 4:30 p.m.
“If it takes you there, will it bring you back?” Bartolotta said. “There’s no reason why we can’t have a more efficient transportation system than we do.”
According to UPMC Insurance, there are two additional providers located in the Charleroi/Monongahela area of the Mon Valley accepting UPMC insurance plans. Patients on some Medicare insurance plans may also be able to access additional cardiologists, such as those within the Allegheny Health System or WVU Health System programs.
Bartolotta said it may or may not help for patients to let UPMC know that as doctors are taken out of the Mon Valley, their money may be taken out of the UPMC system.
“People should say ‘I don’t really want to switch my insurance, but I will if I have to to get quality medical care,’” Bartolotta said. “I don’t know if being the squeaky wheel will make any difference.”