Health-care reform and how it may affect La Plata County dominated the agenda of the fourth annual summit meeting Friday of health practitioners.
An estimated 120 people attended the half-day gathering at the DoubleTree Hotel.
Keynote speaker Dr. Jay Want set the tone with a message that could have come from American Revolution patriot Benjamin Franklin – we hang together or we hang separately.
“Health-care costs have shifted from the government to the private sector, because hospitals and physicians are turning to commercial-insurance reimbursement, because the government refuses to pay more for the service (hospitals and doctors) provide,” Want said. “They raise their price above the cost of service.”
A new approach is needed, Want said.
“We’re caught in the traditional one against the other because we don’t like the unknown, so we stay with the old system,” Want said. “We’re hard-wired to resist change.”
Everyone is coming to realize there’s a limited amount of money for health care, Want said. Instead of fighting over every dollar, the solution is to make what’s available cover all needs instead of spending less on certain populations as revenue dwindles.
Want is the owner of Want Healthcare LLC, a consultant and chief medical officer for the Center for Improving Value in Health Care, a public/private nonprofit trying to reform health care in Colorado.
Want was the keynote speaker at last year’s summit.
Following Want to the lecturn were:
Tino Sonora, a professor of economics at Fort Lewis College; Jeff Bontrager, director of research on coverage and access to medical services at Colorado Health Institute; Joe Sammen, director of community initiatives at the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved; Tom Gessell, president and CEO of Mercy Regional Medical Center; and Linda Gann, outreach coordinator on the Western Slope for Connect for Health Colorado.
Bontrager said that on Jan. 1, the effective date of the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured people in Colorado requiring health-care insurance will rise from 800,000 to 920,000.
A breakdown, Bontrager said, estimates 150,000 in Medicaid and CHIP+ (a children’s program); 160,000 under employer-sponsored insurance; 220,000 self-insurers; and 390,000 exempt individuals (Native Americans and certain religious sects), undocumented residents and people who prefer to pay the fine for noncompliance with the new act.
Residents older than 65 aren’t counted because it’s assumed they have Medicare, he said.
Good things are happening already to bring health care to more people, Bontrager said. He cited:
Nurse navigators who help patients through diagnosis and treatment.
The Citizens Health Advisory Council that coordinates the health summits among its other activities.
The news last week that Axis Health System has been designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center, a status that will bring $650,000 annually for primary care and treatment of behavioral and substance abuse.
The opening in January of the La Plata Community Clinic, which through volunteers provides medical and dental care to the lowest rung of the needy.
Gessell spoke about the medical-records exchange that Mercy has with other Centura Health facilities on the Front Range and medical professionals in Pagosa Springs and Cortez that reduces cost, speeds treatment and avoids duplication of tasks.
“We can’t afford the health-care system we have,” Gessell said. “Health care, like politics, is local.”
Gann explained the role of Connect for Health Colorado, the state health-insurance marketplace. The organization can help people find the most beneficial policy and is the only source authorized to help with a tax credit, she said.
daler@duangoherald.com
