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Corridor Health Care: Ensuring Health Care |
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| Corridor Inc. Staff Writer
Originally published January 2008  Dr. Peter Beilenson is Howard County’s health officer and architect of the county’s Healthy Howard program. Photo by John Keith.
Howard County is the latest Corridor county to jump on the health care bandwagon, introducing its Healthy Howard program. It will offer residents access to primary care physicians, emergency and specialty care and health coaches beginning in July.
The program, expected to cost $2.8 million, will target those ages 19 to 64 and will be extended to 2,000 residents in the plan's first year.
“Everyone is fed up with our broken health care system but attempts to improve are minimal,” said County Executive Ken Ulman. “This is not big government but we think it's going to work, bring costs down and at the end of the day we're out there trying to do something about it.”
In Howard, approximately 20,000 residents are uninsured — 5,000 of those are children, said Dr. Peter Beilenson, Howard County health officer and architect of the health plan.
Because there are no mandates Howard County expects 25 to 30 percent won't participate, leaving 10,000 to 11,000 residents as the target group.
“We believe health care is a right but also a responsibility,” said Beilenson.
Based on a family's income level, participants will pay $50 to $85 per month and receive up to six visits a year for men and seven for women at Chase Brexton Health Services Inc., a network of health centers including one in Columbia.
If an enrollee must visit Howard County General Hospital’s emergency room, they will not be charged a fee for the care.
“The wealthier you are the less effective our program is,” he said. “But it's a huge misconception that the uninsured are the non-working poor.”
Howard's program comes at a time when frustration and dissatisfaction with the health care system is at an all time high and a national debate continues to heat up.
Gov. Martin O'Malley and Maryland legislators took strides to extend medical coverage during the special session last year. A bill was passed that would provide medical assistance to more than 100,000 uninsured Maryland residents.
But Howard County isn't alone. Neighboring jurisdictions in the Corridor began efforts for the uninsured years ago.
Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince George's Counties have all taken steps to aid the uninsured.
“There's certainly attention to Howard but uninsured people are a major concern everywhere,” said Frances Phillips, Anne Arundel County health officer. “We all have the problem and we're all tackling the problem.”
To date, Anne Arundel County has 35,700 uninsured residents.
Anne Arundel's Reach program has served over 6,000 uninsured residents since its inception in 1999, said Phillips.
Currently, 1,507 are enrolled in the program which has the capacity to serve 2,000. The program includes 207 primary care physicians and 543 specialists.
“We wanted it simple enough so it could be completely voluntary on the physician's part because doctors don't want to be involved in difficult billing,” Phillips said.
Unlike Howard, Anne Arundel enrollees pay between $15 and $20 at the time of a doctor's visit and have unlimited doctor visits.
Baltimore Washington Medical Center and Anne Arundel Medical Center are both participants and don't charge Reach card holders, but write it off as a charitable contribution.
Since 1999, nearly $13 million in contributions have come from the program — $5.6 million from hospitals, $4.4 million from providers and $2.8 million from laboratories, said Phillips.
“We had to work creatively because we don't have a county center like Howard,” she said, referring to Howard County's Chase Brexton Health Services clinic. “We've all got our programs and we're all taking bites out of the same apple.”
Montgomery County began its Rewarding Work program in 1999 which provided primary medical services to residents without health coverage. The program became Montgomery Cares in July 2005 and has nine community centers participating today.
The $11.2 million program, funded by county government, has served some 13,000 residents, said Dr. Ulder J. Tillman, Montgomery County health officer and chief of public health services.
Approximately 80,000 to 100,000 uninsured and low income adults currently reside in the county and some 20,000 children are also uninsured, said Tillman, adding that the goal is to reach 50 percent of the county's uninsured residents.
Prince George's County offers assistance to those not eligible for the Maryland Children's Health Program, which provides free health insurance to pregnant women and children who have moderate to low incomes.
The Medical Care for Children Partnership of Prince George's County provides health insurance to children in eligible families for a nominal fee.
The Kaiser Bridge program provides low income health insurance to adults who are not eligible or covered for another health plan. To qualify for the program you must be a Prince George's County resident and meet certain income limits.
All county programs for the uninsured help relieve hospital emergency rooms and reduce uncompensated care everyone pays for, said Ulman.
“People without insurance get care but they get it at the ER and we all pay for that,” he said. “Hopefully these uninsured people will never have to set foot in the hospital and be hit with a $50,000 medical expense they can't pay.”
In time Howard's program will speak for itself, said Ulman.
“We'll see how many people use our hospital and if we can show hospital utilization has decreased — that's the sort of thing that proves a point and makes things happen,” he said. < |
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