Family Health Partnership Clinic Lays Off Obamacare Counselor

An email from Susan Hoban of the Family Health Partnership:

Family Health Partnership logoIt is with deep sadness that we announce the closing of our In Person Counselor Program, which helped countless uninsured people in McHenry County obtain insurance through the new Health Insurance Marketplace or the expanded Public Aid.

Funding for this program came through the state, via our County Health Department who coordinated efforts at 8 local non profit organizations to assist people with the process of getting health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

On Tuesday, October 21, the McHenry County Board voted 10-10 against accepting this grant from the state.

We immediately had to lay off our trained Navigator, and will no longer be able to assist people through this complex process.

Loss of this program is a blow to those we are privileged to serve, and many will face an unforgiving amount of medical debt if they become ill or are in accident.

One of our patients was faced with an uncertain future when his lung x-ray indicated a mass.

We could not get him a lung biopsy, necessary for definitive diagnosis, because he had no insurance.

Thanks to our In Person Navigator, she was able to expedite his Public Aid (which had previously been turned down).

He was then able to get his biopsy and enter treatment for lung cancer.

Without that Public Aid card, there would be no diagnostic nor treatment options available.

Thank you for your continued support of our services.

Without assistance to get people private insurance or Public Aid, we expect the number of patients we serve to increase, and many more to use the emergency room as their primary care clinic wasting precious local health resources.

For more information on the vote, go to the Northwest Herald’s coverage of this issue at http://www.nwherald.com/2014/10/23/mchenry-county-board-rejection-of-health-care-grant-sparks-concern-anger/apruy9d/?PageSpeed=noscript

State Grant Statistics – November 2013 – June 2014 (8 months)

Last Fiscal Year Grant –  $500,000

FHPC      Total Program – McHenry County
Face to Face Sessions 913       5750
Public Aid Application Completed 116       905
Marketplace Applications Completed 202       2036

Average Cost of Getting Person Access to Insurance – $500,000 / 2941 = $170
(figure is higher than actual – annual budget was divided by 8 months of activity)

Average Cost of an Emergency Room Visit – $1233 (Bloomberg News, Feb 2013)


Comments

Family Health Partnership Clinic Lays Off Obamacare Counselor — 10 Comments

  1. A lung biopsy might fall under CPT code 32405 which is reimbursed at $107-$452 by Medicare (private insurers craft their reimbursement rates to be the same or slightly higher than Medicare reimbursement rates). (That amount is less than two months of health ‘insurance’ premiums cost.)

    So, a lung biopsy which any church or private citizen might be glad to pay for-for a fellow human- has been rendered unobtainable because the government has determined that all healthcare dollars must flow through government.

    Buyer and seller of all healthcare services are barred from direct contact by third party gatekeepers.

    Citizens would be better served to focus on what healthcare providers are actually reimbursed by
    ‘insurers’ .

    Health ‘insurance’ is simply a financial contract mandated by law which obligates customers to purchase an unenforceble ‘promise’ of future payment to non-contractually-obligated third party providers, in unspecified amounts, for undefined services, at undisclosed prices.

    Here’s another amount to consider: Medicaid reimbursement rate for ED visits range from about $15 for a nurse assessment to $140 for a highly complex intervention lasting over an hour by a highly credentialed MD. …so what if the patients have ‘insurance’ or not?

    The actual providers are not being reimbursed at breakeven.

    The facility fee reimbursements are also low, but ‘not for profit’ hospitals are granted waivers from paying property taxes and retailer occupation/use taxes in return for their promise to provide indigent care.

    They are also granted monopolies by virtue of Illinois law requiring ‘certificate of need’ to open a hospital.

    This monopoly extinguishes all possibility of competitive practices with competitive pricing for healthcare provision in Illinois.

    And it begs the question: should local homeowners who already subsidize large corporate hospitals which are given tax waivers and monopolies within a region also subsidize facilitators for government mandated furtherance of a system which essentially eliminates access to healthcare absent government ‘permission’?

  2. Wake up people! You are being deceived by your County Health Director!

    There are navigators already in place to provide this service!

    Based on the news report this grant funds five positions!!

    $100,000 per year when 52% of the working people earn less than $30,000 per year!!

    http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2013

    Kurtz, director Hill and others – understand this:

    WE THE TAXPAYERS DEMAND AN END TO THE GRANTS!!!

    We cannot afford this waste!!!!!!

  3. Joe The Patient

    I went to obtain an informed consent.

    Informing the patient what that meant,
    I spent the next several moments explaining
    Concepts I’d learned over twelve years of training.

    The patient said: “yes, I am ready to sign,
    just inform me what this procedure will cost?”
    And I had to admit I was lost.

    I can lecture on stents until my face turns cyanotic,
    Assure a patient we treat flat-lines like they’re merely asymptotic,
    But billing code for DRG’s are a topic Gordian-knotic.

    I told this patient, let’s call him “Joe”,
    That his particular price I didn’t know,
    But if I knew I couldn’t say,
    If Medicare or Medicaid was to pay,
    He could try looking up reimbursement rates on Medicare.Dot.Gov,
    And if stymied at their portal gates
    Joe might react with love or hate
    For a government determined to shield Medicare and Medicaid
    Patients from knowing what their doctors are paid.

    Now, Patient Joe was frugal, didn’t live beyond his means,
    And was dead-set on keeping his own body free of liens.
    Said Joe: “I can’t sign an informed consent if I haven’t been informed of price!”
    I sighed, ” Then you’ll need to sign another form, entitled ‘Against Medical Advice’.”

    Joe huffed and says “…well, ok, but what about my stent?
    I might just have to sue you, for abandonment!”
    Then he laughs and says “just kidding doc! This system really sucks.
    How’s about just you and me, say cash, three hundred bucks?”

    I mustered all my dignity and drew myself erect,
    And…and…
    ( Meet me in the alley out back at nine.
    Here’s a razor and some Betadine)

    ( written for my favorite MD circa 2007)

  4. “There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them”.

  5. The FHPC is run by ultra-left wing liberals who promote socialism.

    This “press release” is more of a political statement to ridicule fiscal conservatives as “cold and heartless”.

    The FHPC survives because doctors and nurses who provide services donate their time for free.

    The administrators actually are salaried positions.

    The administrators are ultra liberals who use the free services of the providers to provide the care as they get paid and promote liberalism.

    I’m so sick of those types condemning fiscal conservatives.

    The stat is broke.

  6. I cannot understand why the gentleman in reference here did not just use the phone to apply for the healthcare.

    Why all the fuss from the liberals? (Rhetorical question)

  7. If the truth be told, little if any of the current debacle has to do with healthcare in the U.S.

    It has more to do with tort law, and the trial lawyers that take advantage of it.

    If you want to really reduce healthcare costs, the formula is simple: cap the maximum lawsuit amount at 50 to 100 thousand dollars, per patient, per incident.

    Watch the costs, and subsequent prices drop, because doctors will no longer have to struggle to insure themselves.

    Want to reduce healthcare costs EVEN MORE? Another simple formula: require a social security number to treat a patient.

    No SSN?

    No problem!

    Provide your billing information, and secure a deposit.

    If the bill is not paid per the terms and conditions, put one of those trial lawyers back to work collecting the money owed!

    Unfortunately, we won’t need to funnel a half million tax dollars into a local program to pay a person to navigate a poorly deployed Federal web site.

    But, perhaps we can grab some donations to help pay a person to teach an underprivileged, underserved person how to use the phone that they have been given through the welfare system.

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