Tuesday, April 13, 1999
Bellevue getting veterans clinic in June
Should ease wait, parking problems at Cincinnati site
BY TERRY FLYNN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BELLEVUE — In about two months, Veterans Affairs will open an outpatient clinic in Bellevue.
Navy veteran Richard Schaub of Southgate can't wait. “It's absolutely wonderful,” said Mr. Schaub, 66, a former radio tech specialist who spent 30 years in the Navy, seeing duty during the Korean and Vietnam wars. “This will mean a lot to Northern Kentucky vets.”
The clinic, expected to serve up to 2,600 patients, is to open in June in the medical building at 103 Landmark Drive off Riviera Drive at the Bellevue-Newport border.
“This is a big deal for us,” said Dr. Mark Cohen, chief of psychology services and head of outreach services at the Cincin nati VA hospital at 3200 Vine St.
“The building in Bellevue should bring a lot of Northern Kentucky veterans to the VA who have never visited before,” he said. “A lot of Northern Kentucky vets don't come to the Cincinnati VA because they find it inconvenient and because parking is a problem. For those people, this (Bellevue) clinic should be wonderful. It's easy to find with access from I-471.”
Mr. Schaub is one of the veterans described by Dr. Cohen. He complained that the wait for service, as described by some of his friends, was just too long, sometimes up to three hours. “And I just don't want to drive over to Cincinnati and try to park,” he said.
Mr. Schaub has already con tacted VA officials in Cincinnati, had an appointment at the VA office in Fort Thomas, which included an initial checkup, and has an appointment date for the Bellevue clinic when it opens. As an added bonus, his cardiologist's office is in the same building.
“I would say any Northern Kentucky vets using the Cincinnati VA hospital will want to do this,” he said.
The main thrust of the new clinic is to serve veterans who have not previously been to a VA facility, or vets who have not visited the VA for many years, according to Dr. Cohen.
“One of our goals is to increase access points for veterans,” he said. “Very often, VA facilities are located in or near the center of cities. In the next couple of years, we want to increase access to medical care to vets, which means bringing the care to them. That translates to opening more commu nity-based outpatient clinics.”
The Dayton, Ohio, VA has a clinic in Middletown, and Dr. Cohen said the Cincinnati VA is looking at a Clermont County clinic by 2000, as well as the possibility of a clinic in the Lawrenceburg area.
The Cincinnati VA covers Campbell, Kenton, Boone, Pendleton, Grant and Gallatin counties in Northern Kentucky, as well as Hamilton and Clermont counties and parts of Butler and Warren.
Dr. Cohen said there are in excess of 19,000 patients served at the Vine Street location, and the Cincinnati VA facility has more than 100,000 outpatient visits per year. The Bellevue clinic should take a little strain off the Cincinnati hospital.
He said one of the major benefits of using the VA for medical care is the low cost of drugs. A month's supply of any drug carried in the VA pharmacy is only $2, which is especially important to vets on a fixed income or with health insurance that provides limited prescription payments.
Veterans with an honorable discharge who have not used VA med ical services in the past or have not been to a VA facility for many years can pre-register for the Bellevue outpatient clinic by calling the Cincinnati VA Medical Center primary care office at 487-6684, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Registration runs until May 31, and those who pre-register will have an initial visit at the Fort Thomas office.
After the new clinic opens, veterans now receiving care at the Cincinnati VA facility can obtain information about how to transfer to Bellevue if they wish.
“There will be 10 examining rooms and a full-time staff handling internal medicine and mental health, plus specialists from Cincinnati visiting occasionally,” Dr. Cohen said.
He said there may be times when some Northern Kentucky vets will need to go to the Cincinnati VA hospital for specialized care because Bellevue will be strictly an outpatient facility.
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