MPCA News
More Good News! – Montana Receives Another
$1,443,000 for Primary Care Access
The Butte Community Health Center (CHC) has received
a $263,000 grant to expand their primary care services
to two new clinic access sites, one in Dillon (Beaverhead
County) and another in Twin Bridges (Madison County). +more
information
Yellowstone City/County Health Department, home
of the Deering Clinic in Billings, has recently received
two grants totaling $900,000. The first grant
for $200,000 (with continuing annual distributions of $154,000
will help to expand dental services to the uninsured and
underserved in Billings and the surrounding area. Lil Anderson,
Executive Director of the Health Department explained the
history of Deering dental services. “In 1995, Dr.
Downing set up practice in our building with the thought
that sometime in the future, the Health Center might have
the funds to purchase his practice. We have recently done
just that.” said Lil. “We will expand the dental
operatories from four to eight, hire a full time dentist
and dental hygienist, and with the continued support from
our volunteer dentists, we will be able to provide a lot
of dental services to a lot of people who could not afford
or access dental care.”
Yellowstone City/County Health Department was able to use
some of the funds they received from the Community Access
Program (CAP) grant for direct patient care and they requested
that those funds be used for dental services. “We had
such a large waiting list for dental. The feds allowed us
to use 15% of our CAP funds to contract with local dentists.
In essence, we purchased appointment slots so that we could
get our patients into care,” said Lil.
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| Deering Community Health Center and
Yellowstone City/County Health Department facility, Billings. |
Yellowstone City/County Health Department also received
$700,000 in second year funding for the Community Access
Program (CAP). They intend to use those funds to continue
to develop community infrastructure to serve uninsured and
underinsured patients. The CAP program has enabled a unique
partnership between the Health Department, Deaconess Billings
Clinic, and St. Vincent’s Healthcare, along with many
other community agencies. Together, they are working to complete
a community medical record and have hired ten case managers,
located in each hospital’s emergency room and same
day care clinics and the Deering Clinic. The case managers
take information from the patients and work to get them into
primary care and other needed community services. “In
the past 5 months, we have enrolled over 1,100 people into
the CAP program.” says Judy Stewart, CAP project director, “We
knew if we were going to make a difference with this population,
it would take a collaborative effort.” Judy expressed
gratitude that everyone involved in the CAP project is willing
to work to break down organizational barriers so that people
can get the medical care they need.
On September 24, 2002, the community of Ashland,
Montana, heard from Senator Max Baucus that they would
be receiving a $280,000 grant this year (and $370,000 the
second year) to convert their existing clinic, Ashland
Rural Health Clinic, into a Community Health Center. The
clinic opened in February of 1997 with Rural Health Outreach
funding support. That support was limited and had recently
ended. “We got this wonderful news in the nick of
time,” said Kaaren Rizor, Clinic Manager, “it
was the last hour of the last day – we were going
to close. Now, we can maintain our services and expand
to meet the needs of our community.” This increases
the number of Community Health Centers to eight in Montana.
The others are located in Billings, Livingston, Helena,
Butte, Great Falls, Libby, and Missoula.
Montana Primary Care Association
1805 Euclid Avenue
Helena, MT 59601
Phone: (406) 442-2750
Fax: (406) 449-2460
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