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The conflicting forces driving the rise in indigent care costs have the potential to create a perfect storm within many communities. At a time when states are tightening expenditures for Medicaid and children's health initiatives, health delivery costs and demand are rising, and employers are reducing workforce or restructuring health benefits. The results may cripple many community health systems in the years ahead.
Concerned citizens of Hall County, Georgia, a progressive community that includes Gainesville, are coming together to study the issue of indigent care and craft and implement a community wide response. Working with Bill Stiles, president of Stiles Healthcare Strategy, a task force representing Northeast Georgia Health System, the Hall County Health Department, private physicians, county government and several social service agencies and free clinics, crafted a community education initiative called HealthShare.
The goals for HealthShare are to increase understanding of the indigent care issue in the community and among business, health and civic leaders, and to craft a practical response. Ideas proposed by the HealthShare plan include redirecting non-emergency patients from the hospital emergency room to the health department and to free clinics for follow up care, and increased education at work on how to access health services more effectively. Long term goals include appropriate levels of funding for an alternative sources of routine care that can reduce expensive hospital visits, emergency visits and life-threatening illnesses.
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