Two more doctors are leaving Hillcrest Health System to join a competing hospital system.

Drs. Robert Wilcox and Patricia Wilcox will soon become part of Providence Healthcare Network. The physicians, who are married, have been working for Hillcrest out of a clinic on Sanger Avenue.

The doctors’ departure from Hillcrest follows that of other family medicine physicians. Earlier this month, five of the seven doctors who were at Hillcrest’s Bosque clinic left to work for Providence.

The Wilcoxes will remain at their existing location, said Alan Tindell, Providence’s vice president for physician operations, but they will be joined by Dr. Jeffrey Arnold.

Arnold has worked at Brazos Family Medicine in Waco for the past eight years. It is not aligned with either Hillcrest or Providence.

Arnold said he decided to re-join the hospital system because of changing trends in medicine. Both locally and nationwide, it is becoming more difficult for doctors outside of large groups to negotiate favorable contracts with health insurers to suppliers. It’s also difficult to recruit new doctors, he said.

Arnold said he wants to remain in Waco, and “joining (Providence) gives me the best opportunity to do that,” he said.

The Wilcoxes did not return a call to their office seeking comment.

Providence’s new hires are part of its recently announced plan to double its network of primary care providers within the next three years.

The hospital system’s goal is to have 60 primary care physicians who are either employed or affiliated with Providence. Affiliated doctors are those who practice exclusively or primarily at Providence, but are not employed by the hospital system.

Providence officials have said one reason for the build-up is anticipation of increased demand for primary health care in the wake of national health reform. But they also have been frank in acknowledging they want to remain competitive with Hillcrest.

Last year, Hillcrest signed a partnership deal with Scott & White Healthcare. Together, they employ more than 50 primary care physicians in the Waco area.

“This is critical to providing choice to Waco,” Tindell said of Providence’s recruitment efforts.

Hillcrest CEO Glenn Robinson said in a statement that the Wilcoxes’ decision to leave was “not entirely unexpected” because they are related to one of the other physicians who left Hillcrest for Providence.

He added that their clinic was never fully integrated into Hillcrest’s clinic structure following their affiliation with the hospital system in October 2008.

“We anticipate a seamless transition for (Hillcrest Family Health Center) clinic operations and any affected patients,” Robinson said in the statement. “We enthusiastically support our HFHC physicians and healthcare professionals as they maintain their 25-year legacy of providing outstanding medical services to our community, and we continue to be extremely confident in the strength of the HFHC clinics throughout McLennan County.”

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