5,300 patients lost care when Pismo doctor’s office abruptly closed. Help is on the way
Thousands of people were suddenly left without medical care after a Pismo Beach neurology office abruptly shuttered its doors — but a solution is now in the works.
Patients at CoastNeuro, located at 2 James Way, were shocked to learn before Thanksgiving that the medical practice was closing suddenly without referring any of its 5,300 active patients to any other local providers.
Many of those patients were notified of the change only through a sign posted on the door of the practice Nov. 25.
The sign advised that its doctors — David Filippi, Peter Masny, David Hardesty and Rajan Patel — could not find a local provider to accept the practice’s patients, but that they would continue to provide medical care “on an emergency basis only” through Dec. 31 at French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo.
“It has been our pleasure and privilege to care for patients in our community for the past 12 years,” the sign concluded.
A follow-up notice on the closure was sent to patients Dec. 1 and posted on CoastNeuro’s website.
When reached for comment in late November, Filippi told The Tribune that the closure was largely precipitated by the sudden resignation of the practice’s former office manager, who also acted as its infusion nurse and patient care advocate.
“The terms of his resignation left us with three business days notice to identify and train a replacement,” Filippi wrote in an email to The Tribune. “We were not able to succeed in that, and more importantly, after prolonged discussion we did not believe it was possible to continue operating our clinic and provide adequate patient care without someone in the role of office manager and patient advocate.”
Filippi also added that he was relocating from the area to care for a relative.
“Our highest concern right now is for our patients, and all of us are losing sleep and working around the clock to figure out what the new practice situation is going to look like,“ Filippi said.
CoastNeuro was founded as a solo practice in 2008.
It provides neurology services — including care for strokes, epilepsy, movement disorders, dementia, neuromuscular disease and headache disorders — for Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, Arroyo Grande Community Hospital and French Hospital Medical Center.
The practice consolidated from a pair of offices in Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo to its Pismo Beach location in 2010.
New neurology center coming to Pismo Beach
Patients will not be without care for long.
Though Filippi is leaving, Hardesty, Patel and Masny have announced plans to open a new neurological center in early January 2020 under Dignity Health’s Pacific Central Coast Health Centers network.
Dignity Health spokeswoman Megan Maloney confirmed the trio of doctors will be able to operate temporarily out of the Matthew Will Memorial Center at Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, which is owned by Dignity Health, starting Jan. 6.
She said it was unclear how long the practice would operate out of that space, but that the doctors are looking for a permanent office somewhere in the Five Cities area.
“From what I’ve heard and read, a lot of patients were concerned about where they would get neurological specialty care,” Maloney told The Tribune in a phone interview Tuesday. “The good news is that they will be able to see a specialist beginning on Jan. 6.”
Maloney said Dignity Health was originally unaware that CoastNeuro was closing, but that the company extended a hand once it heard of the situation.
“Our mission has always been to care for our community and provide services,” she said, “so when we learned that they had closed their doors with no options for their patients to transition to other providers, we quickly reached out to them to offer a solution.”
%20Cropped.jpg)