{"id":776930,"date":"2026-07-22T01:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776930\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T01:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:34:11","slug":"is-providence-your-primary-care-provider-your-insurance-may-no-longer-cover-any-trips-to-redwood-urgent-care-lost-coast-outpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776930\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Providence Your Primary Care Provider? Your Insurance May No Longer Cover Any Trips to Redwood Urgent Care | Lost Coast Outpost"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Providence\u2019s emergency room at St. Joseph Hospital. Photo by Ryan Burns.<\/p>\n

An abrupt policy change made last week by health care provider Providence briefly sent a local urgent care spiraling, though a Providence executive says that the change is mostly administrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Redwood Urgent Care received a notice from Providence last Wednesday, July 15, informing them that Providence employees on its company health insurance plan, and patients who receive primary care via an\u00a0HMO<\/a> that has a Providence Medical Group clinic in its network, have to get permission from their HMO or Providence\u2019s health insurance carrier before being treated at Redwood Urgent Care to have their visits covered by insurance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Redwood Urgent Care isn\u2019t contracted with Providence. Affected patients that use another urgent care clinic that does have a Providence contract don\u2019t need the prior authorization before being treated there, but Redwood Urgent Care is the only one of its kind in Humboldt County. (OpenDoor has a \u201csame-day appointment clinic,\u201d which a spokesman clarified isn\u2019t the same thing.)<\/p>\n

The change affects around 1,800 people in Humboldt County who are treated through the HMO Western Health Advantage<\/a>, said Providence\u2019s Regional Chief Executive Bob Just through a spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Providence is \u201cfinancially responsible\u201d to keep what they pay for their employees\u2019 insurance down, Just said, and keeping as many urgent care visits in-network as possible keeps the prices lower for both Providence and their patients. It\u2019s unlikely that the policy adjustment will harm anyone, Just claimed. Providence\u2019s patients have same-day access to a primary care physician on weekdays, he said, plus telehealth care from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day of the week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a patient needs to utilize an urgent care facility when primary care or telemedicine services are not available,\u00a0then services would typically be approved if an authorization is submitted,\u201d Just wrote in a statement to the\u00a0Outpost.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If not, patients have to pay out-of-pocket, or use Providence\u2019s emergency room at St. Joseph Hospital. The cost of treatment at an emergency room is typically more expensive than at an urgent care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Providence\u2019s emergency room at St. Joseph Hospital. Photo by Ryan Burns. An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-776930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}