The
debate about hospital charity care in Illinois continued to heat up
this week. March 1st was the Governor's deadline for state and hospital negotiators
to come up with a workable new definition of charity care. I favor a
broader definition for charity care which I call “community benefit.”
Now, the Chicago Tribune agrees. The Trib’s March 2nd editorial is right on target.
Here
is an example of how the broader definition of charity care works with
our health center’s long-standing collaboration with Northwestern
Memorial Hospital.
Erie Family Health Center
is a non-profit community agency that provides primary health care to
over 37,000 low-income patients at 11 service locations on the West and
Northwest Sides of Chicago, regardless of the ability to pay.
Over
98% of our patients live below twice the federal poverty level which is
$44,000 per year for a family of four. Over one third of our patients
have no health insurance at all. Over two-thirds do not speak English as
their primary language.
Every
year, thousands of specialist appointments, diagnostic tests,
mammograms, surgeries, ER visits and hospital days are provided by
Northwestern at no cost to our low-income uninsured patients. They are
not turned away.
Northwestern’s collaboration with us extends way beyond the traditional and narrow definition of charity care.
With
Northwestern’s support patients receive needed services at our
neighborhood locations: A community-based diabetes control program
addresses an epidemic of diabetes with education and counseling, an eye
care program prevents blindness in patients with diabetes or HIV/AIDS,
and a breast cancer screening program (click for video) identifies women in need of
mammograms and links them to free tests. We jointly established a
community-based program to train the next generation of family physicians to serve in high needs neighborhoods – one of only 11
programs in the country and the only one in our state.
Our
patients have many extreme barriers to accessing health care including
transportation, cultural challenges and literacy. By planning ahead and
coordinating care at our community-based locations, costly emergency
room visits are avoided and more uninsured patients stay healthy and out
of the hospital. Isn’t this an efficient use of the charity care
dollar?