Clinic: No magic wand for new providers

Jordan Valley Community Health Center relies on its affiliation with the National Association of Community Health Centers to determine what reform ultimately could mean, said CEO Brooks Miller.

As a federally qualified health center, Miller said Jordan Valley CHC, 440 Tampa St., gets about 9 percent of its $15 million annual budget from federal grants, with the remainder coming from its Medicaid, Medicare and sliding-scale, self-pay patients, as well as a few privately insured individuals.

The reform is expected to put an additional $11 billion into U.S. FQHC programs in the next five years, he said, with $9.6 billion for expansion and the rest for capital improvements.

One caveat: “It’s a great thing, if everybody gets a share of it,” he said.

While reform will change the rules for Medicaid coverage, boosting it to 133 percent of the federal poverty level from 85 percent, Miller said that shift could be problematic because federal Medicaid picks up only 60 percent of each dollar for care, putting pressure on state coffers.

Miller said another positive is that reform includes money – about $1 billion, he said – for repayment of student loans for health care providers who spend at least three years working at FQHCs or in underserved areas.

He’s concerned that those funds won’t attract enough providers to care for an influx of patients who previously lacked access.

“There’s no magic wand that gets people to go to medical schools or dental schools,” he said.

Miller is hopeful that reform regulations will include some degree of personal accountability, because without that, he said, health care will lack value.