Clinic's New Designation Ensures More Vermonters Access to Health Care
Clinic's New Designation Ensures More Vermonters Access to Health Care
Polly Lawrence, 81, remembers worrying about finding a family physician when she and her husband returned to Vermont to retire in 1982.
"We wanted a family doctor who would understand our situation as time went on," the Marshfield resident said.
The couple found a medical home at The Health Center in Plainfield, a nonprofit rural health clinic founded in 1974 to fill the gap left as local family doctors retired.
Lawrence, now a member of the center's board of directors, joined a small crowd outside the busy clinic Wednesday morning to celebrate its new status as a "federally qualified health center look-alike" a designation that means higher reimbursements when the center sees patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid, plus less expensive medications and greater access to preventive care for patients.
The designation was more than just good news for the health center, its 7,800 patients and the six rural communities it serves. It represented another step toward providing all Vermonters with access to primary care.
"The principle behind the whole federally qualified health center program is to provide greater access," said Peter Wright, spokesman for Copley Hospital in Morrisville, which helped launch Lamoille Community Health Services, another recently designated "look-alike."
Vermont has five other community health networks including the Community Health Center of Burlington that are federally qualified health centers. That means they receive annual federal grants of about $650,000 to support their operations, with higher reimbursements and access to lower-cost drugs for their patients. The look-alikes do not receive annual grants.
The seven community-based medical and dental centers plus satellite clinics serve 62,000 Vermonters.
"When we talk about moving to health care for everybody," Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told Lawrence, other board members and the staff at the Plainfield Health Center, adding to the number of federally supported health centers is "a very important part of the process."
Sanders and his staff have promoted expansion of the number of federal qualified health centers over the past five years. He said Wednesday he sees the program as one of the federal government's best health care initiatives because it promotes primary care as well as much needed dental services.
Hunt Blair, director of public policy at Bi-State Primary Care Association, said his agency is working with groups in the Bristol area and in Windham and Windsor counties to explore establishing federally qualified community health centers or look-alikes.
Vermont's five health programs with full status receive federal financial assistance to provide health care based on patients ability to pay. Vermont lawmakers have approved state dollars to help the look-alikes the Plainfield Health Center and Lamoille Community Health Services cover some of their costs for providing medical care on a sliding scale.
"This is a big deal," Sanders noted. When patients pay based on their income, he said, "it means your door is open to anybody in your community."
Lawrence agreed. "You are able to go no matter what your financial situation," she said. "It makes it so you are not thought of as a poverty patient."
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