Published Monday, November 16, 2009

Foundation backs charity clinics like one being proposed in Newnan

The Times-Herald

With health care reform passing the House and now hitting the home stretch in the U.S. Senate, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation is saying the charity clinic model such as one being pitched locally by Coweta Samaritan Clinic, Inc. should be a part of the national conversation.

Dr. Kay Crosby made her case for the Coweta Samaritan Clinic Inc. before the Coweta County Hospital Authority last week. The new proposed clinic is seeking anywhere from $90,000 to $100,000 to get the project off the ground.

Ross Mason of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation says Georgia's 100-plus charity clinics cared for more than 175,000 patients in 2008.

Community-based clinics use volunteers to provide care and charge little to nothing for patients who have no other means of accessing health care, he said. Georgia's charity clinics provide between $200 million and $400 million annually in uncompensated care, according to a 2005 state auditor's report.

"That amount will likely be even greater this year because of the rising number of unemployed," said Mason.

"The federal government needs to recognize the savings to taxpayers resulting from the important and mostly invisible role these clinics play in the American health care delivery system," he said.

In 2008, the nation's 1,200 charity clinics served 4 million patients.

"That's 4 million patients, often without the ability to pay, who didn't use government programs for their health care," he said. "These facts should prompt President Obama to give charity clinics a seat at the table to help devise a health care strategy for the 21st century."

Crosby, who spent 20 years at the PAPP Clinic in Newnan, will be the director of the new proposed local clinic.

Crosby told the hospital authority that she and the others behind the proposed clinic are trying to drum up support in the community. The new clinic will be located in a former medical office at the corner of Jefferson and Lee streets in downtown Newnan, near the old Newnan Municipal Building.

"We are trying to put together a health clinic to treat the uninsured and the underinsured," she said.

Crosby said there's a "large population" of "working poor" who are under 65 and don't qualify for either Medicare or Medicaid.

"They don't have a place to get health care," she said, and often wind up in the emergency room, even when that's not the most appropriate place for them.

She said this is going to continue to be a problem in Coweta because "the population is growing, but wages are not."

The PAPP Clinic, Piedmont Hospital, One Roof Ecumenical Outreach, the Coweta County County Health Department, and others are joining together to help make the Coweta Samaritan Clinic a reality, she said.

"Many of these people have lost that physician-patient relationship," she said. "They're not getting the care they need for what are often chronic health problems."

Crosby said her group has been studying similar clinics and surrounding counties to "learn from them."

A needs assessment has now been undertaken, and the group is applying for 501c3 tax-exempt status. They have also applied for a federal planning grant.

"Of course, to do any of this, it takes money," she said.

The Georgia Public Policy Foundation was established in 1991 to give business a united voice as they faced state policy makers.

"As the nation's unemployment rate approaches double digits, the uninsured problem is going to become more critical," said Rogers Wade, president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.

"In many cases, charitable clinics will be the only solution for Americans who have lost their health insurance and can't afford COBRA or another temporary health policy.

"These newly-uninsured often cannot access government programs and depend upon the care of physicians willing to donate their time at charity clinics," he said.