The futility of indigent care networks
Star-Telegram
Mar. 16, 2003
Indigent care network envisioned
By Mitch Mitchell
A new group, the Healthy Communities Coalition, has been working for two years to develop a plan to organize the loose network of health care workers who help Denton County's poor.
Coalition members maintain that creating a structured system would mean that the work could be spread out among a larger group of physicians. It would also mean that indigent patients would have a better chance of receiving care from a physician they knew, instead of being shunted from clinic to clinic, from emergency room to emergency room.
The Healthy Communities Coalition may consider the establishment of a network of clinics throughout Denton County, but the costs make that option unlikely, officials said.
Financial concerns also make it unlikely that a partnership to care for Denton County's indigent could be forged between Denton County and an adjacent county, such as Tarrant or Dallas, that has a public hospital.
Coalition members are searching the Federal Register and state funding sources for available grants but have found none so far. Meanwhile, providing health care for poor and uninsured people in Denton County has been financially taxing for all who are involved.
But members of the Healthy Communities Coalition contend that they can improve access to health care for Denton County and that all they need is a little time and money and a finished plan. The alternative is doing nothing while watching the system become more haphazard.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/5406354.htm
Comment: Futility. This noble effort, taking place in many regions in the country, to establish a voluntary network providing access to health care for the indigent, is doomed to failure because of the crisis in health care funding. Those willing to provide enough care to meet the need are no longer able to fund their losses by shifting costs to insured patients, since insurers now dictate allowable fees.
The irony is that we are already spending more than enough to fully fund this care. But we need to stop spending it on the worthless administrative excesses of the insurers and the administrative burden they place on the system, and spend the money on patients instead.