Alpine Family Medicine will open its doors to the Sandpoint community August 1, 2017. Katie Sweeney, a board-certified family nurse practitioner, is bringing more than a decade of health-care experience to her patients. Having served the communities of Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry for the last six years, she is now ready to provide her patients with a new medical home.
Born and raised in Sandpoint, Sweeney’s parents, grandparents and great grandparents are Sandpoint natives, and her husband was born and raised in Bonners Ferry. They are true locals in the community. The building that houses Alpine Family Medicine was built on Sweeney’s great grandparents’ property—where they raised their 13 children—many years ago. Her grandfather, Phil Bricker, ran the Tam-O-Shanter most of his life until his recent retirement, and her mother, Anna Phillips, has been a registered nurse at Bonner General Health for the last 22 years and has been a role model for Sweeney all of her life.
Having attended eight years of college, Sweeney has a unique nursing background and has completed advanced education to prepare her in her role as a primary care provider. Her focus in not only on the treatment of disease but partnering with her patients and actively involving them in decision making that optimizes their overall health, taking a preventative approach to disease management. She and her staff believe in listening and spending time with their patients to achieve the very best outcome as well as maintaining cost-effective health-care options.
At Alpine Family Medicine, they want to make it as simple as possible for patients by partnering together with them and taking the role as their health-care partner in the medical home. “Ideally, we want our clinic to function as the ‘home town’ medical clinic; the way our health care used to be,” Sweeney says. “Communication and follow-up is very important and a central goal for Alpine Family Medicine.”
The clinic accepts most major insurance companies, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, and welcomes men, women and children. Services that are offered include management of acute and chronic illnesses, mental health, wellness exams for the entire family as well as sports physicals and in-office surgical procedures. They specialize in women’s health care, offering a full spectrum of reproductive health care and services including IUDs, Nexplanon (implantable birth control) and birth-control management, though they do not provide maternity services. They are fully equipped to manage most chronic illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, asthma, COPD, abnormal menstrual symptoms as well as abnormal Pap-smear management, menopause, depression, anxiety, Coumadin management and more. Services also include in-house testing and in-house lab draws for blood work. They strive to meet acute care needs—including but not limited to coughs, colds, sinus symptoms, allergies, urinary symptoms, sprains or sports injuries and laceration—in a timely manner; most same-day appointments. They can perform in-office surgical procedures such as mole removal, toenail management and removal, laceration repair, joint injections, endometrial biopsy and abscess drainage and more.
Sweeney is grateful for the opportunity to better serve the Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry communities and attributes the achievement of opening her own practice to those she most cares about.
“The support from my family, friends and patients while planning and implementing my business plan has been plentiful. My husband and two daughters have helped with the office layout as well as my family,” she says. “My patients have been my central motivating factor to drive forward with opening this clinic. I am thankful every day I get to help my patients. I absolutely love my career and feel very fortunate to be a medical provider. I have a great respect for this profession and for each and every patient that I get to see. Being able to see my patients through an illness or injury and come out to a healthier outcome is absolutely priceless.”
Alpine Family Medicine PLLC 1013 Lake Street Unit 102 Sandpoint, Idaho 208.597.7910