Considering Williamsburg, VA (Norfolk, Richmond, Newport News: real estate, apartments, health insurance)

[Azile]

I currently live in NC and was considering moving to Williamsburg, VA. The health insurance is ridiculously high, but Virginia seems to have a much more reasonable health insurance cost.

This leads me to my main concern. Does anyone have an opinion on the health care service in the Williamsburg area? Are the hospitals good? How are the doctors? Any concerns?

A more specific question is how are the neurologists? I do need a specialist in neurology and one of the concerns I have is finding a good neurologist, but that is not my only concern. It's just high on the list of things I need to know.

[Cattknap]

I don't know how close to retirement/Medicare you are, but VA has one of the worst Medicare fee reimbursement rates to doctors in the U.S. There have been a number of recent articles in the paper about retirees not being able to find a Williamsburg doctor who will accept Medicare and Williamsburg is full of retirees.

The cost of living in Williamsburg is probably much higher overall than you are used to in North Carolina....in fact Williamsburg has an overall cost of living that is about 27% over the national average although North Carolina has higher overall taxes than Virginia.

Do some research and make sure that overall, Williamsburg is the best place financially for you to move.

Williamsburg is a beautiful place and it is growing unbelievably. They are having traffic problems, problems building new schools, increased crime problems (for the first time, their crime rate is slightly over the national overage), etc. Housing prices are high there compared to many places in the south and property owners have seen their property taxes rise significantly in the last few years.

We love it there and have always hoped to retire to Williamsburg (we are retiring in 18 months), but we are having second thoughts and considering other places because of the Medicare and growth problems in Williamsburg....I won't be on Medicare for 10 years but the problem with a lack of doctors accepting Medicare still concerns me.

[Azile]

Hmm interesting. Actually I'm quite young and am no where near retirement. I haven't even started a family yet!

I was just curious about the health care system. Specifically doctors and hospitals, and not Medicare. I do not qualify for that.

Online, it still says that Williamsburg is good with crime. Where did you see your stats? Just curious, I want to learn even more, but I have done a lot of research so far. From what we've discovered already, the cost of living in NC is getting to be way too high for us. Health insurance rates are ridiculously high due to my condition. True, you can get more house for your money here, but the schools are WAY overcrowded. Most of the schools in my area and near by are switching to year round to help alleviate some of the over crowdedness and the fast influx of children in the area. Building new schools is causing our taxes to go higher and higher and the rate of building these schools is slower than the rate of children moving into NC. It's getting close to NYs taxes where I moved from.

The quote I got for the health insurance is much lower in Virginia than in NC but what I don't know is the quality of the medical system (I guess that might be clearer than health care system) in Virginia. One of the hardest things about moving from NC to VA is, I know the hospitals are very good here. I like my doctors very much and I like the area I live in despite the changes in taxes and construction. It's just the cost of health insurance I'm having a huge difficulty with.

I'm concerned however since the new construction is mainly apartments and townhouses, that this new style of croup living will bring in more crime. I suppose that comes with every town, but it does concern me. Especially, in a new and undeveloped town. I'm not sure my town is able to keep the crime down near where the new construction is going on. My block, in a supposedly really safe neighborhood, already has had a couple of break-ins.

[jmadz]

The types of apts, and townhomes being built in Williamsburg seem to START in the mid $300k range and go up. Not sure that those kinds of townhomes/condos will bring much of a crime element.

I too am re-locating to Williamsburg from NC (Charlotte area). Crime is the least of your worries in Williamsburg. It may be going up - but if a town has 1freak incident and a person is murdered, doubling the homicide rate from the past year, I suppose that would mean crime is going up.

As far as health care, I am not sure what its like in Williamsburg proper, but you're not far from Richmond or Norfolk. They're both home to larger regional hospitals that I would assume have more specialists.

[Cattknap]

The reason I mentioned the crime going up is because I read (have read for years) all the on-line newspapers (The Gazette and The Pilot)....crime is going up and there is some concern among the citizens. If you look on Yahoo under the real estate section you can look at neighborhood profiles for many cities throughout the United States....the statistics are up to date and based on reportable crimes that police departments must keep track of and report to the FBI. There is a lot of other info that may be of interest also - air quality, median price of homes, education levels, average temperatures, etc.

The crime that concerns me is personal crime - crime against persons and that is on the rise.

I have watched Williamsburg crime rise over the last 3 years from the low 2% to 3.7% which is only 1/10 of one percentage point over the national average. These are not alarming statistics and they are certainly lower than most small cities in the South, but it is indicative of the growing pains that Williamsburg is experiencing.....they have traffic and traffic signal problems, they are holding a forum in a few days on how to deal with the homeless, they are having controvercies about building new schools - they face overcrowding in the schools because of the tremendous population growth in the last few years, they have inadequate medical care for people on Medicare (there are lots of retirees in Williamsburg), etc. If you need to go to the doctor often and decide to go outside of Williamsburg for treatment, Norfolk and Richmond are both one hour away (a two hour drive round trip and longer with traffic). Williamsburg has had a problem with car thefts recently with 2 of 3 persons in a car theft ring being arrested last week, the police chief recently held a public forum where he discussed the increase in crime. It sounds like the police are stepping up to the plate to try to deal with the crime increase, but crime is going up nevertheless. Nothing to get alarmed about, but something to watch.

I don't necessarily think a population increase should equate to a rise in crime - so when I see population and crime going up, I wonder how the police department will respond and how much taxes will be increased in order to deal with the need for additional officers and technology.

I am particularly aware of these types of things because they concern me - my husband and I want to feel safe and be safe whevever we retire. I don't think this is a subject that most younger people think about much.

That being said, we love Williamsburg, visit once or twice a year, staying in Colonial Williamsburg and have never felt unsafe there.

[Mr Williamsburg]

I live in Williamsburg and have for a few years. Crime seems to be almost non existent here. OK some kids stole a few cars and there were some break ins. They all seemed to be the same group and they were apprehended. I do not and have never locked our house. I don't believe there has ever been a theft issue in our UN gated neighborhood since it was started in the 1970's. Schools are a little crowded but there a currently two under construction set to open next year. And 3 or more in the pipeline. We are still a small town trying to adjust to growth. There are currently only 2 high schools here. I grew up in Va Beach where there are 11. We have a great luck with medical care. Occasionally we have to travel to Newport News for different specialist treatment. Not sure about neurologist though.

Just my .02

[sallybell]

I don't know about neurologists in Williamsburg, but it is just under an hour drive to Richmond VA and the Medical College of Virginia, which has a plethora of respected neurologists.

you can visit the web site at http://www.vcuhealth.org/ for more information.

[denny]

My wife and I are considering retiring to williamsburg next year. We visited in October and love the place. Since I am in a Medicare HMO, I was concerned by the comments with respect to being unable to find a doctor who will sign up for Medicare patients.

I find this strange, since Anthem Blue Cross/ Blue Shield just began offering a Medicare HMO plan for the Williamsburg area. This being the case, there have to be in-network doctors who will sign up for this plan. If I am mistaken , please let me know as this is very important. Many thanks.

denny

[Cattknap]

Denny - there have been quite a few recent letters to the editor and articles about the fact that those on medicare who live in Williamsburg (the problem is throughout Virginia) cannot find doctors who will accept them, and also the decreasing number of doctors willing to accept medicare at all. The reason stated in the articles is that Virginia has one of the lowest medicare doctor reimbursement rate in the nation. The Virginia Gazette online is where I have been reading about this. A public forum was held about the problem about 2 months ago at Sentara Regional Medical Center - the Gazette had an article about it but you can't access it - you can google "Forum Williamsburg Medicare" and the mention of the article comes up under "Medicare Threat", but the link no longer works. Apparently the Gazette doesn't do a good job of saving recent articles for public use.

[Azile]

I am not involved in medicare, but I find that sometimes it does help to call up some of the doctors in the area that you might be interested in seeing ans asking them what coverages they accept. If you need Medicare, it might be good to get an idea of what doctors are available. There may not be many doctors available (I really don't know much about this area. It seems Cattknap has a better understanding), but if the doctors you are interested in using will accept the coverage you require, that may help you with your decision to move.