News
The Register-Guard Op-Ed: Coalition broadens access to local health care system
GUEST VIEWPOINTCoalition broadens access to local health care system
By Maxine Proskurowski
and Steve Manela
Published: Tuesday, July 24, 2007
In an effort to expand access to health care for our uninsured and underserved neighbors in Lane County, a collaborative network of safety net clinics has been working together. Over the past 18 months, this diverse group has come together to tear down the barriers our patients face, making it easier for them to obtain health care in the best setting.
While the safety net clinics occupy different niches and operate differently, their staffs have built relationships with one another and deepened their commitment to our common goals so that each of us is more successful.
Community Health Centers of Lane County is a federally qualified health center, providing a medical home to all patients. Its RiverStone, Safe & Sound, Springfield and Churchill High School clinics serve uninsured patients at a discounted cost (youth clinics are free), and also serve insured patients.
The Volunteers In Medicine Clinic provides services at no charge to uninsured adults with incomes between 100 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Professional and nonprofessional volunteers staff it.
White Bird Clinic is a grass-roots collective. Its paid and volunteer staff members provide a broad range of health and human services to low-income, uninsured people of all ages.
The 4J School-Based Health Centers are open to all students in the Eugene and Bethel school districts, regardless of insurance status. They have nurse practitioner clinics at four local high schools.
All our clinics refer patients to local medical specialists. Many health care providers and organizations also occasionally offer funding to the safety net clinics. Our four organizations often run on budgets that would make other organizations cringe. We applaud all who offer their expertise and resources. Their generosity is making a tremendous difference.
Yet even with these efforts, Lane County is still struggling to provide health care to everyone. The large number of patients without health care affects the economy and the health of our entire community.
This ethical and economic dilemma has been wrestled with for four decades. National and state initiatives have failed, faltered or achieved limited success. Ironically, partial progress such as employer-provided health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid and the Oregon Health Plan have fed a burgeoning, inflationary health industry, making medical, dental and behavioral health care prohibitively expensive for the millions who are left out.
We don't know when or if a true solution will be forthcoming from the federal or state level. In the meantime, the 100 Percent Access Coalition in Lane County is mobilizing resources in a broad community effort to address care for the uninsured.
Strategies employed by our four organizations have begun to see success, including a joint reference card with contact and eligibility information, a shared release of information form, and a review of pharmacy programs that provide medications at low or no cost. Our joint efforts have resulted in an increase in referrals between clinics, an electronic linkage between the safety net clinics and hospital emergency departments, and information sharing about pharmacy programs.
However, more is still required. Those of us who work at the safety net clinics and in hospital emergency rooms see the magnitude of the problem daily. A full community response is needed to address these daunting and complex needs. Restoring health and self-sufficiency to the uninsured calls for access to the entire spectrum of care, both vertically (including specialists, labs, diagnostics, pharmacy and hospitals) and horizontally (including dentistry, optometry, behavioral health treatment and alternative health care).
Those who do not receive appropriate medical care affect everyone.
The 100 Percent Access Coalition is large, but not nearly large enough. We are issuing a call for more involvement. Let's do all we can. We are doing a lot, but we are convinced we can do more.
It's sad when we're unable to cure or contain a person's illness; it's a shame when we could have but didn't.
Maxine Proskurowski is program manager for 4J School-Based Health Centers. Steve Manela is director of Community Health Centers of Lane County. This column also was signed by other members of the 100 Percent Access Coalition's safety net clinic committee: Bob Dritz, clinic coordinator of White Bird Clinic; Dr. Lois Garner, medical director of the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic; Selene Jaramillo, clinic manager of Community Health Centers of Lane County; and Susan Whitehouse, executive director of the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic.
