WATCH expands
By Steve Herring
Published in News on December 4, 2014 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Melissa Whiteside, left, certified medical assistant, jokes around to make the prick less painful as she checks Diane Kirk's blood sugar inside the new WATCH clinic on Wednesday afternoon.
It did not take long for people to find the newly opened Wayne Action Teams for Community Health clinic at Wayne Memorial Hospital.
"The new patient load is what is so surprising, that we are having so many new patients," WATCH Executive Director Sissy Lee-Elmore said. "I don't know if people have just learned about us or what, but we are having so many new patients."
The patient list grew by 164 during the third quarter of this year.
With the new clinic, WATCH's budget this year will be about $1 million.
The program orders $2 million in free medicine annually, Mrs. Lee-Elmore said.
"So if you figure the free meds and the free labs and free primary and acute health care, we provide probably $7 million to $9 million of care a year," she said.
Added to that is how WATCH's services help to reduce demand on the hospital's emergency department, she said.
The emergency department will call WATCH when discharging a person who does not have insurance. In turn, WATCH will make an appointment because the person needs to be seen within seven days, she said.
However, with the increased patient load that can be hard to do, she said.
"We do a patient survey each year in January, and 53 percent of the patients said they had a decrease in ER visits," Mrs. Lee-Elmore said.
WATCH opened in 2000 and provides free primary and acute health services and related lab tests to the uninsured residents of Wayne County.
A 40-foot mobile medical unit canvasses the county, delivering services at scheduled locations each month.
It is the only free mobile health care clinic in the state.
A second clinic location opened at the Family YMCA in 2009.
"This is a whole new clinic (at the hospital campus) and that is paid for by Golden LEAF funds," said Mrs. Lee-Elmore. "They are going to fund the staffing for 15 months. I don't know what we are going to do at the end of the 15 months.
"It (funding) has provided a nurse practitioner, a front office clerk and a medical office assistant full time for 15 months."
The 15 months started Sept. 8 when the new clinic opened. The administration moved into its new office on Sept. 1.
"This was the old wound care center and the hospital paid to refurbish and refurnish it for us," she said. "Administration is over here and that is totally a clinical office that has four exam rooms. We use two for triage and two for exams.
"It has an island in the middle, kind of like in a doctor's office. It has a seating room. It is set up just like a doctor's office. We have all three (clinics) now running full time."
Jim Johnson was hired as the clinic's first physician assistant. Johnson has many years of experience, she said.
"People like coming here," she said. "I was surprised. Actually, the schedule on the truck has slacked up some. Everybody wants to come here because it is nice and new and pretty, and there is plenty of parking. It must be convenient, too."
The mobile unit does not operate on Thursdays. The clinic at the Family Y is closed on Mondays and the new clinic on Fridays.
"That is so the providers have time to do their paperwork, calling in prescriptions and checking labs (results) to be sure the values are in range and those types of things," she said. "They have to have some office time.
"This one is probably booking 30 a day and that doesn't include the six walk-ins."
Between all three clinics, WATCH had 1,155 patient visits in October.
"It is really weird with the Affordable Care Act we are still booked out 100 new patients," she said. "Now if you have the Bronze Health Care Plan (under the Affordable Care Act), you have a $5,000 or $,6,000 deductible -- you are underinsured, horribly underinsured.
"You do not have access to primary and acute health care. That is catastrophic coverage. That is for if you have cancer or something and you are in the hospital and have chemo and have all of these things. You still have to pay the $5,000 to $6,000 out of your pocket."
However, that person couldn't just go somewhere and have a physical or a flu shot, she said.
"Our board has agreed to take those patients," Mrs. Lee-Elmore said. "They would have to bring me a copy of their policy so that I can assure they don't have access to primary and acute health care. But nobody has come and said, 'I have the Bronze Plan.'"
Along with providing primary and acute health care, WATCH provides referrals for specialty care or care that is outside WATCH's scope of practice.
Some physicians who provide service outside of WATCH's scope at one time came to the clinics. Now the patients are sent to the doctor's office because that is where the equipment is, she said.
Quest Diagnostic provides free lab work.
"They give us about a half-million dollars in free labs each year," she said. "They have been our provider for 10 or 11 years now. If we didn't do lab work, we are just sunk. We can't treat people.
"We have a quality improvement program for hypertension and diabetes. We did get an award for that from the state this year, the Association of Free Clinics. So we provide really good quality health care."