Georgia has the 11th highest percentage in the nation of working-age adults with no medical insurance, according to a Georgia State University 2008 report on the uninsured.In Chatham County, about one in four adults ages 18-64 are uninsured. Area hospitals also have reported a significant increase during the last two years in numbers of “self-pay” patients seeking care in emergency rooms; many of these individuals have health conditions that could be treated in primary care clinics. The majority of uninsured patients seek primary care in the emergency rooms between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., hours when other resources are available, according to a 2007 Safety Net report.
The Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council, a countywide planning group for health care, was created in 2004 to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the local health care system. Its overarching goals are to strengthen the health care infrastructure and to improve the health of area residents. It also seeks to build capacity within the community, improve access to health care and to steer the uninsured and underinsured to primary care providers.
Its Care Navigator Program, implemented in 2006 and funded by a grant from Healthcare Georgia Foundation, supports area hospitals and providers to enroll uninsured patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetic and hypertensive patients, and to link them to a medical “home” as one strategy to avoid use of emergency rooms for their ongoing care.
The Safety Net Provider Network is composed of primary care providers and other agencies that support the delivery of health care services. Key health care providers include the hospital emergency departments (Memorial University Medical Center and St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System) and five primary-care clinics, Curtis V. Cooper Primary Health Care (CVC), Community Health Mission (CHM), J.C. Lewis Health Care (JCL), St. Mary’s Health Care (SM), and Good Samaritan. CVC and JCL are both federally qualified health centers, providing primary care to adults and children who are uninsured and/or underinsured, including those covered under Medicaid, Medicare, and PeachCare. CHM, SM and Good Samaritan are volunteers in medicine clinics which treat only uninsured, low-income eligible patients.
