Group helping uninsured access care to close doors

A nonprofit group that helped uninsured Arkansans obtain medical care for the past 25 years is scheduled to cease operations Monday after losing its primary source of funding.

Meanwhile, a state Department of Health spokesman said Friday that three charitable clinics -- in Morrilton, Heber Springs and Newport -- have notified the department over the past several months that they have closed because of coverage options that became available to their clients Jan. 1 under federal health care overhaul law.

Those coverage options were the reason officials with the state Department of Human Services decided to end funding for the Arkansas Health Care Access Foundation after Monday, the end of the state's fiscal year.

The foundation helped connect uninsured Arkansans earning up to 150 percent of the poverty level with doctors who agreed to donate their services.

The Human Services Department had provided the foundation with about $250,000 a year in state tax dollars, department spokesman Amy Webb said.

The foundation "had the option to continue to exist, but they would have had to have found a different funding source," Webb said. "It's my understanding that their board voted to go ahead and close."

She said the department will continue providing $25,000 to $50,000 annually for a program, mandated by the state Legislature in 1997, that provides referrals for people who are indigent, elderly or disabled to dentists who donate their services.

The administration of that program will move from the Health Care Access Foundation to the Health Department, Webb said.

David Wroten, executive vice president of the Arkansas Medical Society, which helped create the Health Care Access Foundation in 1989, said he was "tickled to death" that the foundation is closing.

"We're looking at it as mission accomplished," Wroten said. "We completed what we set out to do, and those people that we have served over the years, now, for the first time in their lives for most of them, now they have health insurance."

Taking advantage of funding that became available under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the state Legislature last year extended eligibility for Medicaid to adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level: $16,105 for an individual, for instance, or $32,913 for a family of four.

Under the so-called private option, most people who qualify can sign up for a plan on the state's health insurance exchange, with the Medicaid program paying the premium.

Those who do not qualify for Medicaid but have incomes of less than 400 percent of the poverty level may qualify for federal tax-credit subsidies to help pay their premiums.

As of June 1, more than 187,000 newly eligible adults had been approved for Medicaid coverage, while more than 40,000 who did not qualify for Medicaid were enrolled in plans on the exchange.

According to information submitted to the Arkansas Department of Insurance, the Health Care Access Foundation served about 1,900 patients a year through a network of 1,000 professionals who agreed to provide free services.

Under a contract with the Insurance Department, the foundation also hired five outreach workers who helped people sign up for coverage under Medicaid and the insurance exchange.

Kalena Jones, the foundation's director for the past two years, said the workers helped about 1,200 people enroll, including about 200 people who had previously received care through referrals from the foundation.

She said the foundation planned to send more than 100,000 patients information about its closure and instructions on how to apply for coverage through Medicaid or the insurance exchange.

Signing up for coverage would allow those patients to choose a doctor who would help manage their care, gain access to health screenings and other preventive services and visit the same drugstore on a regular basis, she said.

The Health Care Access program was "designed to help someone in a situation of crisis," Jones said.

"I definitely think they'll be benefited greater being in the private option or on a private insurance plan," she said.

The Insurance Department's contracts with the Health Care Access Foundation and more than two dozen other groups that provided outreach workers for the enrollment effort were scheduled to expire Monday.

Special language included in the appropriation bill for the Insurance Department during this year's fiscal session prohibits the department from providing funding for the outreach workers after the state's new fiscal year begins Tuesday.

Insurance Department spokesman Heather Haywood said some of the organizations plan to continue outreach efforts using other sources of funding.

At least three other organization that once received state funding to provide medical care to the needy have shut down over the past several months.

The Conway County Christian Clinic in Morrilton, which received just over $23,000 in grant funding from the Health Department this fiscal year, notified the department in an undated letter that it had moved all its patients to Medicaid or the private option.

In Newport, the Christian Community Clinic of Jackson County, which received $3,600, notified the department in January that it closed Dec. 31.

The Christian Health Center in Heber Springs, which received more than $34,000, held its last clinic March 27.

Dr. William Wells, who helped start the Heber Springs clinic a decade ago and was chairman of its board, said the board decided to close the clinic after the number of patients seeking appointments started dropping last fall.

"Our patients had medical insurance coverage available, so our reason for existence disappeared," he said.

He said he was happy his patients would have better access to care, but "sad because we had put a lot of effort and energy into it for 10 years."

While some patients, such as illegal immigrants, may not qualify for subsidized coverage, Wells said he hoped the coverage options would continue to expand.

Eddie Pannell, director of the Harmony Health Clinic in Little Rock, said the wait time for an appointment at his clinic, which sees patients two days a week, has fallen from six to eight weeks to about two weeks.

All the clinic's patients who are eligible for coverage under the health care law are required to apply for it as a condition of receiving services, he said.

Outreach workers hired by the clinic under an Insurance Department contract helped sign up about 175 of the clinic's 2,000 patients, and others may have signed up on their own, he said.

It's possible that the clinic will scale back its operations by the end of the year, he said, but it will continue to serve those who don't qualify for coverage because of their immigration status as well as the "transient homeless" who haven't yet applied for coverage.

Those who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid may temporarily lose their coverage if they run into financial trouble and don't pay their premiums, he added.

The clinic also provides dental services, which won't be covered next year for adults under the private option.

He said a few of the state's other 30 or so charitable clinics might close, but "it's not going to have a drastic effect" on most of them.

"There's still plenty of need," he said.

A Section on 06/28/2014

Upcoming Events