Fuhrman opens Lakeside Medicine

SANDPOINT — For Kelly Fuhrman, it’s all about her patients.

“Lakeside Medicine is a patient-centered, family-focused, trustworthy medical practice,” Fuhrman said of her new practice located at 1005 Highway 2 West in Sandpoint. “ ‘Old-fashioned’ values are our cornerstone, by that I want to emphasize my priority to serve the patients not only as clients, but neighbors. In this practice every patient will have a face and a voice.”

A longtime nurse in Spokane and Bonner County, becoming a nurse practitioner was the next logical step for her, she said. She found herself asking doctors she worked with more questions about what was going on and why; she wanted, she added, to know the full picture.

She applied to the nurse practitioner program at Washington State University in Spokane and was accepted. After graduating in 2010, Fuhrman passed her boards that October and has been practicing since, first for a doctor she had worked with at Holy Family Hospital in Spokane and then for a Sandpoint doctor.

“This summer decided I wanted to practice my own style of medicine to where my patients feel like they have the time and energy spent with them to help them through their health care,” Fuhrman said.

And thus, she said Lakeside Medicine and Aesthetics, LLC, was formed. The practice is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Health care these days can take a lot of planning and it was important for Fuhrman to have connections with her patients, to devote the time she needs, but more importantly that they need, to give them the health care they both need and deserve.

“All my patients have a name, a face,” Fuhrman said. “I remember them, I know where they are, what they’re doing. I know about their families, their children, what their jobs are, what their hobbies are. It’s important to me to have a connection. That was really the biggest thing for me.”

Currently in health care there is a “medical model” that exists solely to extract the most dollars from every patient visit and limits the time spent with patients, Fuhrman said.

Having spent eight years working in large community health centered clinics, she was constantly frustrated with unnecessary X-rays, labs, and physicals solely to achieve a higher payment. Patient appointments were arranged to ensure that limited time could be spent with each client. Her objective at Lakeside Medicine is to solve the patients’ immediate medical needs regardless if the invested time is covered by insurance or not.

“Sometimes ‘health care’ should mean just that, keeping the patient healthy instead of constantly chasing ‘sick care,’ ” she said. “Personally and professionally that is not why I became a health care provider and I truly believe our community deserves better. At Lakeside Medicine my first objective is to give every patient the best care I can provide and sometimes that starts with listening from the heart.”

Fuhrman said her personal goal is to ensure patients have access to their health care provider with affordable health care options, and to protect the weak and vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and chronically ill in a trusting patient provider relationship.

“I really advocate for my patients, it’s not about the dollars,” she said. “It’s that people are satisfied and look forward to coming to the doctor, that they know they’re going to get personalized help.”

Although Lakeside Medicine is a family practice, Fuhrman has special interests in cardiology, nephrology, dermatology, and urgent care medicine.

“Through my 30 years in the Spokane medical community, I have worked with some of the leading specialists in the Inland Northwest,” she said. “Many of these professional friendships I still maintain explicitly to serve my patients. My goal is to provide you with high quality, comprehensive; evidence based health care while collaborating with colleagues in Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene, Spokane, and Seattle when the need arises.”

The practice offers not only what patients need and expect at a private family doctor but also all the things they would see in an emergency clinic, from labs to suturing. The only thing Fuhrman doesn’t have is an X-ray machine, but she is able to refer patients to Bonner General where they can be seen by the appropriate staff.

Both appointments and walk-ins are welcome and the practice accepts Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross, Regence Blue Cross, and most private insurance and can set up self-pay programs for patients as well.

Also on staff at the practice are Elina Schultz, LPN, and Becky Shelton, office manager. Additional nurses are available on call if needed and Fuhrman employs an outside company to take care of patient billing needs.

Information: Lakeside Medicine, online, lakemedicine.com; phone, 208-290-3302; or fax, 208-255-2066