Independent clinic in C-Falls centered around community

Laura Hall has served on multiple international mission trips in areas such as El Salvador and Slovakia, but it’s the work she does as a certified family nurse practitioner at Heaven’s Peak Health Care in her home town of Columbia Falls she considers to be her daily mission.

Laura and her husband Dan Hall, a Kalispell native, co-founded Heaven’s Peak in December of last year after a 10-month stint in Texas where they teamed up with a church to create a missions ministry. Although the couple said their time away from Montana was rewarding, both in Texas and internationally, they felt the need to return to the Flathead Valley — a place where they say there is no shortage of medical needs, particularly in the Columbia Falls area.

“We had moved 1,900 miles from everything and everyone we had ever known and stepped out in faith, but knew that Montana is our home,” Hall said. “I loved going out of the country and serving, but when I come back here it reminds me that the needs here are greater than many realize.”

Hall said never in her wildest dreams did she think she would one day own and operate an independent practice in her home town. But in eight short months, Heaven’s Peak has served more than 700 patients primarily in the Columbia Falls, Hungry Horse and Coram areas.

Hall, 49, has been in family health care since 1999. She has studied, lived and worked in remote areas such as Libby and Havre. And she said Heaven’s Peak, among many other things, is helping to address issues in rural health care.

“There are a lot of people looking for closer options,” Hall said. “In rural medicine, people are isolated. Well, there are people right here in Columbia Falls that are isolated, too. Many people who come to us walk even, because they don’t have a car to drive.”

Hall said although large hospitals such as North Valley Hospital and Kalispell Regional Healthcare are within driving distance, those aren’t always viable options for people in the Columbia Falls vicinity.

Diana Waldheim, who served as a firefighter, EMT and search-and-rescue team member prior to joining Heaven’s Peak, said the practice’s independence is something patients are attracted to as well.

“We are patient-based and not connected to any large medical facility. So we can give patients the time and attention they need,” said Waldheim, who is also 100% deaf and is fluent in sign language and lip-reading.

Hall said just as people continue to come into the clinic for needs ranging from physical check ups and assessments to minor acute care and more, the Heaven’s Peak team has spent the past eight months integrating themselves into the community as well.

For example, staff serve the homeless in local soup kitchens and each employee donates $1 to wear blue jeans on Fridays — an ongoing pot of funds they will donate to various local causes of their choosing. Hall also travels to six assisted-living facilities in the valley on a regular basis, providing care to around 150 patients.

Most recently, the clinic was part of a local event that brought together health-care and nutrition professionals in the Columbia Falls area to speak with the community about sports medicine, nutrition and more. Heaven’s Peak offered physicals at a reduced cost of $20 per patient and funneled all proceeds back to the food program for the Columbia Falls School District.

“We have a loyalty to this community,” Hall said, a Columbia Falls High School alumna. “We want to serve them both inside and outside of this community and meet them where they are, but also get them the services they need.”

And she plans to incorporate a lot more similar activities in the near future.

The Heaven’s Peak team is currently a five-person show with Hall, a certified nurses assistant, a medical assistant and two front-desk agents. In a few weeks, a board-certified internal medicine doctor, John Lewison, will join the staff as well.

“It’s an incredible opportunity, seeing as internal medicine doctors are hard to come by in this valley,” Hall said.

The opening of Heaven’s Peak has been a challenging eight months, but Hall and her team say they are excited for what’s to come. She hopes to bring on more staff, expand their services and find more ways to bring their services from the clinic to the community.

“There have been many times where we have sat down and asked ‘what do we want this clinic to look like?’ and ‘how are we going to continue growing in a way that can allow us to provide great holistic care here?’” Hall said. “It’s definitely a learning curve. But we are excited.”

Heaven’s Peak Health Care is located at 1035 Ninth St. W. in Columbia Falls. The clinic accepts Medicare and Medicaid and most major insurance providers in the Flathead Valley.

Reporter Kianna Gardner can be reached at 758-4439 or kgardner@dailyinterlake.com