Healthcare Services
HEALTHCARE CENTER GUIDE
Medical Emergency: Dial 911 from your Condo House Phone. This number also registers with the Front Desk who will contact a nurse and maintenance/security. Also calling from your condo house phone directs the call to a local emergency dispatch center expediting the response. IMPORTANT! If calling 911 from your cellphone, inform the Front Desk by dialing “0” so they can direct the EMTs to your condo.
OR
Pull the emergency cord or activate the handheld device which notifies the Front Desk of an emergency. You’ll be called immediately verifying the emergency situation. A nurse will assess your emergency to determine if “911” should be called.
Villa Marin Health Center Overview
Let’s start by dividing the HC into three distinct areas of services – the Clinic, the PCU, and the SNF. The Clinic is where independent residents can get advice on making medical decisions, or schedule transportation to their medical appointments within Marin. We have Villa Marin Physicians working in the clinic and 1/3 of our residents have chosen those physicians to be their primary care givers. The other 2/3 of us has chosen to have their primary care givers outside VM, some with Kaiser and some with other private physicians in the area. Those who have chosen the VM physicians for their primary care doctor can make an appointment with the doctor and see him in our Clinic downstairs. They will be billed for the appointment and pay with their secondary insurance and Medicare. Those who have chosen outside private physicians or Kaiser as their primary care provider must go to their doctor’s appointment outside VM, and they also will be billed and will pay for the service with secondary insurance and Medicare. VM will transport those residents to and from their medical appointment if it is within Marin County.
We all pay for the services of our primary care providers, and we all may have to pay out of pocket if the services we have requested are not covered by our secondary insurance or Medicare. The only difference is who is providing the care. However, the VM Clinic, which is open weekdays during business hours, is available to all of us, regardless of our choice of primary physician, for certain independent services. We can ask the nurse for advice if we are unsure of our symptoms or just have questions about what to do about a medical problem. If you have a minor wound, for example, you can call the Clinic nurse, at 2418, and she may offer to dress it for you. Or if she determines it needs to be examined more thoroughly, she may tell you to go to your chosen provider. We can go to the Clinic to get our blood pressure taken or our ears examined by the nurse. You can have the medication nurse in the Clinic organize our medication in daily doses so you do not become confused what to take on what day and when; that is called the Medi-Set program. You can schedule rides to take you to and from our chosen medical provider within Marin County. Those services are available to all VM residents at no extra cost. There are other services in the Clinic that need a doctor’s order to obtain and will be billed, such as Ear Irrigation, Laboratory, Physical Therapy, etc. A Podiatrist is available by appointment bi-monthly and charges the patient or Medicare for his services.
How do VM residents gain admission to the SNF or the PCU? Each resident at VM has signed a medical contract which states his/her specific “free days” or “exclusions” regarding a stay in the SNF or PCU. Villa Marin is intended for healthy, independent people. However it is recognized that not every applicant to Villa Marin is going to be without medical issues. Rather than reject applicants with “issues”, Villa Marin simply does not offer (excludes) benefits that cover those issues. One of the benefits Villa Marin offers residents is “free” use of the SNF or PCU when needed for medical issues that arise during residency. This is not an unlimited benefit; your personal contract with Villa Marin lists how many “free” days are available to you – it depends on your age and when you came to Villa Marin. Once the “free” days have been used up, the health care facilities are still available to you but at a reduced rate –again, only for issues that did not preexist your admission to Villa Marin. You are welcomed to the Health Care Center at any time for pre-existing conditions not listed as “exclusions in your health care agreement, but there is no discount for residents with excluded issues over what the general public pays. Each situation is different but staying in a nursing care unit for reduced rates, or even free, is an unusual and exceptional benefit. Any stay in the Villa Marin Health Care Center depends on the ability of the Health Center to provide the needed care.
If you are admitted for inpatient care which is covered by Medicare, you will be admitted to the SNF. Otherwise, the unit in which you are provided care will be decided by the entire inpatient healthcare team. If your doctor says that you need care in a nursing unit, he can admit you to VM SNF or PCU. For those VM residents that have VM doctors as their primary care physicians, the transition to VM SNF or PCU is seamless because this is where they prefer to care for inpatients. Of course, if you need services that VM does not provide then VM doctors will admit you to where you can get the services you need. VM residents that have outside doctors or Kaiser need to be more proactive to make sure that they choose to go to VM for their nursing care since outside doctors and Kaiser do not have VM at the top of their list of referrals. As long as the nursing care services you need are available at Villa Marin you may and should state that you want to come “home” to VM for your nursing care.
Mailroom Medicine Cabinet – On the occasion you need a non-prescription medication and cannot get to the drugstore there’s a resident medicine cabinet located in the mailroom.
Stocked items include: Tylenol, Ibuprofen, aspirin, Band-Aids, gauze, cough medicine and Pepto Bismol. The combination is 911* Please only take what’s needed and leave a small donation towards the maintenance of contents
Heath Center Resident Binders – All residents provide copies of their medical records upon move-in which are maintained in a clinic chart. Copies of Advance Directives and POLSTs should also be given to the clinic as well as kept in your condo. Current and easily available information may save your life
Exclusions and Fees (effective 11/1/24) – Villa Marin resident stays in the Health Center are at special rates determined in the contract upon move-in. Learn more about exclusion conditions in the Resident Guide. The regular daily rate for Villa Marin Residents is $260 per day – unheard of in today’s healthcare market. This doesn’t even apply until your “free days” are used (see section 8 of the Resident’s Guide to Villa Marin for more information). The daily rate for Villa Marin Residents admitted for an “excluded condition” is $520/day, still significantly less than other Marin County facilities
Villa Marin residents are able to receive services from our health center that are not available to non-residents e.g., free days for some in-patient stays, reduced rates for in-patient stays, free transportation to medical appointments, nursing advice, medication management, etc. Non-Villa Marin residents can also use our health center if space is available. The current daily rate for an outside patient is $520/day, also an excellent rate. Please let friends and family know about this great deal.
MEDICAL STAFF
Health Care Services Administrator
Paul Duranczyk has operational responsibility and oversight for all departments in the healthcare center. Direct questions about medical contracts, assisted living services or rehabilitation needs to Paul by calling ext. 2405
Director of Nursing
Bridget Geist, RN, oversees all nursing services and may be reached at ext. 2625
PHYSICAL, OCCUPATIONAL and SPEECH THERAPY
Villa Marin contracts with Village Health for all therapy services. Contact the therapy department at ext. 2419 for more information