30 days or more Prior to Move

• Consult Health Insurance representative to obtain a list of approved providers in your new location and make any necessary changes to your policy.
• Research the medical capabilities and facilities via the internet and other informational sources.
• Utilize Physician Referral Hotlines:
  • Huntsville: (256) 429-5000 or (256) 265-7648 or (866) 581-BRAC(2722)
  • Huntsville Hospital System: http://www.hhsys.org/index2.html.
  • For Medical Doctors: Try the AMA Doctor Finders at: http://webapps.ama-assn.org/doctorfinder/home.html
  • For Dentists: http://www.ada.org/
• Make copies of your insurance policy and cards to carry with you during the move.
• Advise your Health Care Providers (Physician, Dentist, Optometrist) that you are moving and request a referral to a local provider.
• Request copies of your family’s health records (Medical, Dental) to hand carry or to be sent to your new provider. You may have to sign a release to do this. Some providers maintain Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and can transfer electronically.
• Request copies of pet health records (if applicable), and request a referral from your local provider.
• Arrange transportation of pets if needed.
• Research local government regulations for pet registration (if applicable).
• Advise your pharmacy that you are moving and request transfer of prescriptions to your new location.
• Make sure you take 30-60 days of supply of your prescriptions to cover you during transition.
• Secure birth and hard copy health records for all family members. Recommend placing all important documents in a fire-safe container.

Hampton Cove, AL 4 Bdrm / 4 Bath Single Family $322,862 4 bedrooms 4 bathrooms 2,820 sqft .33 acres lot Hampton House Membership Included Built in 2006 View More Pictures and Information

7 Days Prior to Move

• Review checklist to ensure you have all required documentation.
• If medical records were sent via mail or electronically, contact local provider to verify they were received.
• Confirm arrangements for pet transportation (if needed).

Hampton Cove, AL 4 Bdrm / 4 Bath Single Family $322,862 4 bedrooms 4 bathrooms 2,820 sqft .33 acres lot Hampton House Membership Included Built in 2006 View More Pictures and Information

The first two tenants of a proposed 16,000 sq. ft shopping center in Hampton Cove were announced this week. Hampton Cove Christian Academy and Anytime Fitness will occupy the building on the right in the picture above. The other buildings will be built when there is a demand. The center should be completed sometime this year. Last year, the owner of the property signed a deal to build a Guthrie’s restaurant there, but was met with opposition from nearby residents. Guthrie’s later decided to “never” try to locate in Hampton Cove again.

Huntsville Times Article

Decatur’s Sweetwater development, announced last week, could bring some much-needed competition to the entertainment and convention market in the region, and the VBC could use it as an excuse to go forward with a proposed expansion/renovation of its 10,000 seat arena and concert space. Sweetwater will have a 300-room hotel attached to an 80,000 sq. ft. convention center, which will be completed in 2010, with an 5,000-8,000-seat entertainment venue that will be built in a later phase. Huntsville leaders aren’t worried about the development’s impact on bringing conventions and concerts to the VBC, but they do think it will give them a little competition. The VBC has planned a expansion of the 10,000 seat arena to 13,000 and modernizing the rest of the 30-year-old complex.

Hampton Cove, AL 4 Bdrm / 4 Bath Single Family $322,862 4 bedrooms 4 bathrooms 2,820 sqft .33 acres lot Hampton House Membership Included Built in 2006 View More Pictures and Information

And this doesn’t sound right:

“John L. Morris, who started Bass in Springfield, Mo., in 1971, at one time worked with Springfield-based hotel developer John Q. Hammons to build Bass Pro Shops and Embassy Suites hotels at the same locations. Glover said he has never heard of Hammons, who developed the Embassy Suites Hotel in Huntsville.”

The “300 room, all-suites” hotel sounds a lot like an Embassy Suites, and Hammons has a reputation in the hotel industry. I don’t see how this developer doesn’t know him.

Huntsville Times article: Decatur project no big rival

Recently, land has been cleared on the Winchester Plaza (the Publix shopping center) outparcel next to McDonald’s, sparking rumors on what is going in there. Some say it’s a restaurant, others, more specifically, say it’s an Applebees. Being a longtime resident of the area, I was curious myself and went out to investigate.

First, I checked on Winchester Plaza’s website. Note that the outparcel in question is shaded in gray with the letters NIC: “Not In Contract.” It has been like this for months. So, no luck there, besides the fact that someone doesn’t want nosy people (like myself) from seeing what they’re putting there.

So I went to another “weapon” of mine: the Madison County “Interactive Tax Assessment Map”. It gives info on every parcel in Madison County, such as the owner, their address, and the assessed value of their property. Kind of scary, actually. Anyway, from there, I learned who owned the property- “Winchester Center, LLC” with a Lawrenceville, GA address. A quick Google search of the address reveals that it is for Marvin Hewatt Enterprises- a company that develops gas stations/convenience stores. Another Google search of the company’s name shows a “For the Record” article from the Huntsville Times on Sunday, March 8 where three building permits were issued for the company, two for the property in question. The contractor that was named in the article, Charter South, Inc. specializes in building gas stations. One of their “current projects” is a Mobil station in Marianna, FL for Marvin Hewatt Enterprises.

Conclusion: Sorry, It’s probably going to be a gas station. Hope for better luck with Harris Hills.

With the BRAC move of AMC to Redstone Arsenal only two years away employees at Fort Belvoir interested in making the transition have begun collecting information and planning.  Many employees have expressed concern over the availability of health care providers in the Tennessee Valley region.

Hampton Cove, AL 4 Bdrm / 4 Bath Single Family $322,862 4 bedrooms 4 bathrooms 2,820 sqft .33 acres lot Hampton House Membership Included Built in 2006 View More Pictures and Information

Several articles have been published in the Huntsville Times that address this issue including, “Hospitals striving to ensure BRAC transfers’ needs met” and “Need to find a family physician? Help is just a phone call away.”

The rumor mills have been spinning with questions of the number of doctors, availability of services and level of care.  The following information was gathered from Huntsville-area health care providers to provide AMC employee moving to Redstone the guidance they need to make their health care transition a smooth process.

The role of the family practitioner

Local health care experts advise that your first step in relocating your health care needs is to establish a relationship with a Family Practitioner.  Whereas in the Northern Virginia it is common practice to maintain several specialists for each medical need you have, in the Huntsville area the standard procedure is to establish a FP and allow that doctor to coordinate your medical needs.

Many members of the Advance Team relocated and attempted to make appointments with local specialists and found that no one was accepting new patients.  This can be alarming and deceptive.  After further research, Advance Team members discovered that there was not a lack of health care providers, but rather a different way of doing business. 

According to Dr. Pam Hudson, Crestwood Medical Center chief executive officer, most specialists don’t accept new patients off the street. 

“The best way for a patient to make an appointment with a specialist is through a referral from their family practitioner,” said Hudson. 

According to Hudson, this is just standard practice in the Huntsville area.

Dr. Robert Center, dean of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Huntsville Regional Medical Campus, said establishing a FP is in the best interest of you family’s health care. 

“A family practitioner can act as the conductor to your orchestra of medical needs - overseeing every aspect of your family’s medical care.  This is just good medicine.  A family practitioner can handle 95 percent of your medical needs, including those of women and children.  And if there is a specific issue that needs more specialized treatment, your FP will refer you to a specialist,” said Centor.

“The family practitioner will take care of your entire family, from birth to grave,” said David Spillers, chief executive officer of Huntsville Hospital.

Centor explained that FP is a specialized medical field whose physicians have completed medical school, a one year internship and two years of residencies including rotations in internal medicine, pediatrics, nursing, obstetrician and gynecology, and sports medicine.

Ready for BRAC transfers

Spillers explained that the numbers estimated of those relocating won’t put a strain on the medical community in Huntsville.

“Huntsville has been rapidly growing over the past several years so this influx of people is just normal business for us,” said Spillers.

And that fact can bee seen in the numbers. 

According to the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce’s census figures the 12-county region of North Alabama has a population of about 900,000 and has seen a population growth of more than 5,000 people per year over the past five years.  The Huntsville Times estimates BRAC will transfer 4,500 Washington-area Army employees over five years. 

Spillers, Centor and Hudson all agree that the medical community in the Tennessee Valley is equipped to handle any population increase.

“Huntsville has been ranked as one of the top 10 places to practice medicine,” said Hudson.  “So it’s not hard to recruit the country’s best physicians and we’ve been aggressively doing so for the past several years.”

Quality of care

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services there are 17 major hospitals within a 50-mile radius of Huntsville, Ala.  In Huntsville alone there are two major hospitals and a medical campus - click here for a full list of available medical facilities. 

Huntsville Hospital is one of the nation’s largest locally owned not-for-profit facility with 881 licensed acute care beds. The health care team at Huntsville Hospital is comprised of 650 physicians supported by 5,000 hospital employees, including nearly 2,000 nurses. Huntsville Hospital offers a wide variety of services and maintains several additional facilities including Huntsville Hospital for Women & Children, an outpatient Medical Mall and Madison Medical Park.

Crestwood Medical Center, Huntsville’s privately operated hospital, is an acute care, 150-bed facility with more than 500 physicians on staff representing 50 different specialties. Crestwood Medical Center is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations and features several centers of excellence.

There are also several medical facilities in outlying communities:

• Athens
• Arab
• Cullman
• Decatur
• Grant
• Guntersville
• Hartselle
• Fayetteville, Tenn.
• Scottsboro
• The Shoals

Just the facts

Still concerned about the level of health care available in the Huntsville area?  Here are some statistics to ponder:                
(Data compiled from StateHealthFacts.org. All data as of 2005.  * per 1,000 population.)

• Total hospitals: Ala., 109; Va., 87; Md., 50; D.C., 11 (Total in U.S. 4,936)
• Hospital beds*: Ala., 3.4; Va., 2.3; Md., 2.0; D.C., 6.1 (National average 2.7)
• Hospital admissions*: Ala., 155; Va., 103; Md., 122; D.C., 241 (National average 119)
• Emergency room visits*: Ala., 459; Va., 382; Md., 386; D.C., 615 (National average 387)
• Outpatient visits*: Ala., 1,659; Va., 1,758; Md., 1,208; D.C., 2,834 (National average 1,971)
• Number of physicians: Ala., 11,352; Va., 23,676; Md., 25,037; D.C., 4,854 (Total in U.S. 973,524)
• Number of registered nurses: Ala., 37,270; Va., 53,850; Md., 49,010; D.C., 8,340 (Total in U.S. 2,368,070)
• Number of physicians assistants: Ala., 288; Va., 1,019; Md., 1,488; D.C., 191 (Total in U.S. 55,063)
• Medical school graduates in 2005: Ala., 226; Va., 379; Md., 427; D.C., 411 (Total in U.S. 15,736)
• Paid medical malpractice claims in 2007: Ala., 21; Va., 94; Md., 126; D.C., 18 (Total in U.S. 8,848)

Advice from the experts

Local health care experts agree that there are several things you can do before you relocate to prepare:

1. Get copies of you records - Visit your doctor(s) when your move date gets close. Notify them you are moving and request copies of you medical records including a list of all prescriptions.

“Many doctors provide electronic records these days, either way having a copy of your records and a list of your prescriptions is extremely important,” said Spillers.

2. Obtain a referral - Doctors have a network of colleagues and can provide you with a referral before you even move. Ideally the referral would be to a FP, or from specialist to specialist.

“The doctors in our community have studied or practiced medicine all over the country. I would be very surprised if your doctor didn’t know a colleague in Alabama they could refer you to,” said Hudson.

3. Do your research - Depending on your current insurance you may need to adjust or change plans. Blue Cross/Blue Shield is the dominant insurance provider in the Tennessee Valley region, according to local health care providers. HMO plans are not available in the area.

4. Assistance is available - Both Crestwood Medical Center and Huntsville Hospital have established hotlines to match newcomers with physicians. You will be asked basic biographical information and paired with a physician through a database of health care providers accepting new patients.

• Crestwood Medical Center (256) 429-5000
• Huntsville Hospital 866-581-BRAC (2722)

More information

Spillers, Hudson and Centor are making themselves available to answer your questions during a March 27 Brown Bag.  The lunch-time event will be held in the Miller Operations Center.  For more information visit the BRAC Web site.