What’s New?

his past year has brought about many changes to the Plentywood Clinic.  Some of which include many new faces.  Some include the type of care your are going to be receiving.  And some include the type of services  which are now available here at the Clinic.

                Let’s begin with the new faces.  We are excited to announce we now have on staff a Registered Dietitian, who is also a Certified Diabetic Educator.  Marci Butcher, RD,CDE is a member of the Medicine Lake Community.  Her hus-band, Jason Butcher is the Principal at the Medicine Lake School and they have one son Andrew who is 3 and are expecting another child in January.  Marci moved to Sheridan County approximately one year ago from Billings.  There she had worked for St. Vincent Hospital as a dietitian/diabetic educator.

                Also starting in November was Lisa Fawcett, RN.  Lisa is a member of the Outlook Community.  She is married to Doug Fawcett and the two of  them have one child, Kyle who is just under two years of age.  Lisa moved to Sheridan County approximately one year ago from Billings.  There she worked for Deaconess Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit and also for their flight program known as Deacare.  We are very excited to have both Marci and Lisa as part of our health care team.

Mari is still in charge of accounts payable and payroll here at the clinic.

The new office manager is  Nancy Lasar, RN.  Nancy has worked at the Plentywood Clinic for just over a year as a registered nurse.  She will be in charge of all office aspects, as well as continue to work as a nurse with Dr. Stoner.  Nancy has been busy setting up many of the Disease Management Clinic some of you may have heard about.

                With all of the new employee changes, we have managed to keep the long term faithful ones here.  They are,

Amber Skorpil - Physicians Assistant

Tressa Wang - Receptionist

Lyn Guenther - Accounts Receivable

Edie Ritland - Patient Billing

Cindy Nikolaisen -Insurance Filing

Sherry Sebastian - Medical Assistant

Judy Becker - Medical Assistant

Karen Linder - Registered Nurse

Bonnie Stoner - Registered Nurse

Bev Cybulski - Registered Nurse

                             Sherry Williard - Cleaning Personnel

                             Toni  McCann - Cleaning Personnel

All of these along with the new employee’s are here and ready to help you with all of your medical needs.

therefore giving them more responsibility and control over their health condition.  The asset  of Disease Management is preventing disease and intervening

early with patients who have chronic conditions such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, asthma, etc. 

                We began a formal diabetic education program in November.  This included an initial group workshop taught by the dietitian/diabetic educator and nurses.  In these workshops, we included such topics as what is the difference between Type I and Type II Diabetes, Nutrition Therapy, Food Label Reading, Long Term Affects of Diabetes, and Chronic Complications of Diabetes.  This was our initial session and following up  the education, we will be scheduling appointments for patients to see Marci, individually to review dietary needs.  Also diabetic patients were encouraged to set up an appointment with the “nurse diabetic clinic”.  For the “nurse diabetic clinic”, patients will schedule a half hour appointment with the nurse.  Items to be covered will include home glucose readings, last A1c results, complete foot exams along with complete body assessment, review current medications and further diabetic education as needed.  By scheduling with the nurse, patients will have 30 minutes of uninterrupted time which will allow them to ask questions and  voice concerns related to their health.  Dr. Stoner will continue to provide over all medical care to the patients as well as review each patient visit with the nurse.  By doing this Dr. Stoner and his staff believe they can prevent many complications related to the disease process as well as provide outstanding patient care.  If you are a diabetic and haven’t yet taken part in our education program, call the clinic today to schedule an appointment with the “Nurse Diabetic Clinic”.

                The other Disease Management Clinic we have established in a “INR Clinic”.  This is a clinic for those patients on continual coumadin therapy.  This clinic will be conducted similar to the diabetic clinic in which the patient will call and schedule an appointment with “Nurse INR Clinic”.  At the appointment, the nurse will do an actual INR blood test, review your current medication, check your blood pressure, and do a complete head to toe assessment.  If the INR is in the range which Dr. Stoner has established for each individual patient, then there will be no medication changes and the patient will need to return in four weeks.  If the patient’s INR is outside of the range, then Dr. Stoner will be consulted immediately to make the appropriate medication changes.  As with the diabetic clinic, Dr. Stoner and the nurse will review all patients and their results daily.  Patients will also follow up with Dr. Stoner every 3 or 6 months.  Insurance companies are covering these services.                 So by establishing Disease Management Clinics, we feel we can better serve our patients health care needs, spend quality time with them, and still provide all of their medical care by their family physician, Dr. Kirk Stoner.

All doctor visits are by appointment only.  The following is a schedule for the Plentywood Clinic.

DR. KIRK STONER            MONDAY

                                                TUESDAY

                                                WEDNESDAY

                                                THURSDAY  AM  ONLY

                                                FRIDAY

                                                SAT  9 - 11 (WALK-INS)

A. SKORPIL, PAC              MONDAY

                                                TUESDAY

                                                THURSDAY

To make an appointment with either Dr. Stoner or Mrs. Skorpil, you need to call the Plentywood Clinic at 406-765-1501

Emergency room protocol dictates that unless you specifically request the services of your own family physician, you may be assigned to the ER doctor on caall.  If you have any questions, please call the Plentywood Clinic at 406-765-1501