Virtual Clinic
Network helps uninsured receive quality care

By LAURIE SMITH ANDERSON
Published: Dec 15, 2006
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Tina Penn is grateful to have found a “medical home” at the Greater Baton Rouge Community Clinic.

The 38-year-old woman suffers from hidradenitis suppurativa, an uncommon, chronic inflammatory skin condition that caused her to get large boils on the tops of her legs, under her arms and on her chest. Without health insurance in the past, she sought treatment only when the boils got infected and painful enough to send her to a hospital emergency room, where doctors would lance the lesions and send her home without diagnosing what was causing them.

“I heard about the Community Clinic from some co-workers and went to see Dr. Lynda Roberts first who sent me to see Dr. Drake Bellanger,” Penn said. “He knew what my condition was and did surgery. I know he saved my life. I’m still going for wound care, but I’m so much better. I recently went back to work, delivering meals to the elderly for the Council on Aging.”

By providing comprehensive health care (medical, dental, mental health and vision care) to the uninsured, working poor, the Community Clinic strives to improve quality of life and deliver quality care to patients, said Pat Chester Alford, executive director.

The Community Clinic is a “virtual” clinic, in that patients are treated in participating doctors’ offices rather than one specific site.

“We want to deliver proactive rather than reactive, or episodic, medical care,” she said. “Providing a medical home to patients, like Tina, gives them the opportunity to establish a history with a primary-care doctor and get all of their needs covered.”

People who don’t have health insurance are much more likely to use hospital emergency rooms as their primary-care providers because they can’t afford the cost of a doctor’s visit, she said. The ER doctor generally doesn’t know the patients or their medical histories, and may never see them again.

Some 500 doctors, dentists and medical professionals of every specialty, as well as area hospitals, clinics, imaging centers and labs, volunteer their services through GBRCC to provide free care to the working poor in the nine-parish Baton Rouge area. The value of the services they provided last year was more than $500,000. The clinic’s operating budget for 2005 was slightly more than $120,000, which is funded through grants and donations, Alford said.

“A lot of doctors do indigent, uncompensated care through the emergency room,” said Bellanger, who has volunteered his services to the clinic for four years. “The clinic gives us a way to provide more comprehensive care” in a structured, coordinated system, he said.

“Tina had a severe case of hidradenitis suppurativa and she had been suffering for several years,” he said. “She had multiple abscesses and a serious infection. Surgery to remove the affected glands was what she needed and she couldn’t afford it. Through the clinic, she was able to get the coordinated care she needed.”

In addition to seeing a primary-care doctor and a surgeon, Penn received services from a dermatologist, an anesthesiologist, a plastic surgeon, a wound-care specialist, a dentist, home health, two hospitals and two specialty groups.

“I just feel so blessed,” she said. “I had gotten really depressed. If it wasn’t for my kids, I think I’d have been suicidal. Today, I’m making cupcakes for my kids and looking forward to Christmas. I thank God for the Community Clinic.”

Louisiana is second in the nation in its percentage of uninsured adults, Alford said. “We can hardly make a dent in that need but we’re working on it. Our patients are generally eligible to receive services for one year, but many stay with their primary-care doctors even after that because of the relationship they’ve established.”

In order to qualify for services from the clinic, individuals are screened. They should be 18 or older, live in the coverage area and meet the clinic’s guidelines for low-income assistance. They should be currently employed, working 30 or more hours a week, and have worked at least 10 of the last 12 months.

They can earn up to 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines and should not be eligible for medical or dental insurance including Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration or other government-assisted programs.

Parishes include East and West Baton Rouge, East and West Feliciana, Ascension, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee and St. Helena.

For more information, call (225) 769-3377.