The
Ohio House of Representatives
Select Committee on Quality Healthcare
Rep. Greg Jolivette, Chair
Testimony by Karl Valentine, MD, Medical Director Ambulatory Care Affiliates,
Ltd.
Representative Jolivette and members of this committee, I want to thank
you for inviting myself and my colleagues here today. As the Medical Director
of America's Urgent Care of Gahanna, I represent two points of view, that
of the healthcare provider and of small business. Ambulatory Care Affiliates,
Ltd (ACA) provides urgent care services in six locations in Central Ohio.
By year's end, we anticipate we will see over 68,000 patients.
With the increasing shortage of primary care physicians, the public's use
of the local hospital's emergency room as their primary care facility has
grown tremendously each year. In response to this, the urgent care services
market has also grown tremendously. In Columbus alone, there have been nine
urgent care clinics that have opened their doors since January 2001. Two
of these have been in response to the closing of a hospital facility.
These centers are a free-market response to the growing need for medical
care that is flexible, available, and affordable. Because of the specific
regulatory and physical costs that face an emergency room, but not the urgent
care clinic, we can often provide the appropriate level of medical care
for hundreds of dollars less. And with our availability during the evening
and weekends, we can also provide appropriate care at the on-set of a condition
before it can have an increasingly adverse effect on the patient. As the
trends in both medical care costs and patient responsibility increase, the
urgent care clinic is a viable and cost effective response to the community's
needs.
In the past, it has been the traditional role of emergency room to act as
the safety net for communities' immediate health care needs. The demands
being made on today's Emergency Departments have now exceeded their capacity
to fill this role. It is now the urgent care clinic that, properly structured,
can be the new safety net for those medical needs,
We will not presume to advise you on how to address the total healthcare
concerns presented today. But we do believe it would be in the public interest
for the State of Ohio to take a proactive approach in supporting the development
of programs and regulations which will enhance utilization of the urgent
care clinic option. An example of this would be the elimination of the co-pay
limits that ultimately, through financial incentives, can improve the health
care choices an employee makes. By eliminating these limits, consumers can
have a choice of what copay levels they can or want to buy, and employers
can have options to encourage their employees to use their benefits responsibly.
Businesses have simple needs when it comes to their healthcare benefits.
If an employee becomes sick or injured, he or she needs to be treated, made
well, and able to return to work. The administrative process required to
accomplish this task can easily overwhelm a small business.
Finally, as a small business, we would like to note two national trends
that impact our costs and business. First, in the past 24 months, our medical
insurance has risen 32%, and we have recently been told to anticipate a
20 to 25% increase for 2003. Second, since 1998, our malpractice insurance
premiums have increase 332%, from $23,898 to $77,065. This is without a
single malpractice case being brought against us. As patient care is our
source of income, both these costs need to be passed on in the form of increased
patient charges.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to present this information, and I
will certainly be available for any question you may have either today or
in the future. |
