Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs plans to open an outpatient clinic in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, hopefully by fall, a spokeswoman said Friday.

The VA will solicit bids soon from property owners with space to lease for a 4,000-square-foot clinic, said spokeswoman Marcia Hoffman-Devo in Anchorage. While the VA does not plan to build a clinic, it may add on to an existing structure, she said.

The clinic would provide primary and mental health care, she said. Staff would include a primary care provider, either a medical doctor or nurse practitioner; two nurses; an administrative assistant; and a mental health provider, Hoffman-Devo said Friday.

The clinic would serve a population of about 7,900 veterans in the borough who are eligible for VA care. That's about 12 percent of all veterans in Alaska and the third-highest concentration in the state, she said.

Veterans may be referred to specialists in Anchorage or for diagnostic tests in Anchorage or the Valley, Hoffman-Devo said. She said specialists from Anchorage might travel to the Mat-Su clinic as well.

A VA study in 2002 produced the data to support placing a clinic in Mat-Su, she said. Currently, veterans travel to the VA clinic in Anchorage for care.

The new Mat-Su facility is part of a VA decision to create 44 new clinics around the country. That ultimately will increase the VA network of independent and community-based clinics to 782, an increase of more than 100 in five years, according to an announcement Thursday by the VA.

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