New Study Reveals Health Centers Reduce ER Visits in Rural Counties
A new study underscores the dramatic impact of Community Health Centers in cutting costly and unnecessary visits to hospital emergency rooms (ER) in rural areas. Researchers at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA examined visits to the ER by uninsured people in rural Georgia and found that there is a 33% excess of uninsured emergency room visits in counties without a health center. The study, published in the Journal of Rural Health [“Presence of a Community Health Center and Uninsured Emergency Department Visit Rates in Rural Counties," January 2009], underscores the critical role health centers can play in reducing ER visits and keeping down health care costs by treating people –including the uninsured – in a primary care setting. The study notes that the costs of ER visits by uninsured people are often carried by other patients, payers, and their communities. In rural areas, where uninsured rates are often higher, the burden of uninsured ER visits has a direct impact on the financial viability of small rural hospitals.
“This study offers a clear and compelling picture of what national trends also show – that a large portion of costly ER visits could have been redirected to a health center, where the care is as good as or better than that provided anywhere else, and much more cost-effective,” said Dan Hawkins, Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC).
The lead author of the study was Dr. George Rust, Director of the National Center for Primary Care and professor at Morehouse School of Medicine. Said Dr. Rust, "Community health centers are uniquely effective in providing a comprehensive primary care medical home for the uninsured, assuring that patients in need get the right care in the right setting at the right time. This allows emergency departments to focus on care for patients with true emergencies, and decreases the load of unreimbursed care borne by financially-challenged rural hospitals."
The Georgia study concludes that “one strategy for reducing unnecessary [ER visits] is to promote access to care in settings that specifically serve the uninsured, who might otherwise have no medical home… Over the past four decades, health centers (CHCs) and other federally qualified health centers (FQHCs?) have provided a very important source of primary health care for low-income and medically underserved urban and rural residents.”
The study singled out the accomplishments of health centers in managing and reducing chronic conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma. A case in point is a health center patient Mark Southern, an uninsured patient at Georgia Mountain Health Services, a health center in Morganton, GA., who suffers from diabetes.
"I tend to go about every three months to get blood work done at Georgia Mountain Health Services,” said Southern. If something occurs, I go back. No other place is close… I can’t afford to go anywhere else.”
ER visits by uninsured patients pose a significant problem in Georgia. According to the study, of the roughly two million visits by non-elderly adult patients during a three-year period, roughly one-third were uninsured patients, although only 18% of Georgia’s non-elderly adults are uninsured.
The findings of the Georgia study are consistent with the findings of national data that show a link between lower ER use and access to primary care. A 2007 analysis by NACHC revealed that $18 billion a year is wasted on unnecessary visits to ERs that could have been redirected to a health center.
To learn more about the study visit:http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121585401/PDFSTART
