A decade ago, Dr. Larry Wolk saw a need for pediatric care for low-income, uninsured or under-insured children.
He attacked that need in a unique way.
The young doctor formed the first nonprofit, private physicians’ practice in the country.
“The IRS had a very interesting time trying to figure out how to classify us,” Wolk chuckled.
But “it allowed us to really get the subsidization necessary to provide care for these kids,” he said.
It also established the practice’s priority, “which was not in the physicians profiting, per se,” Wolk said. “Incorporating our entire organization as a nonprofit entity really established our philosophy first, which is that we’re going to provide care for these kids, rather than as a medical practice that has to make ends meet.”
What stared in 1996 in a shared clinic at St. Luke’s Hospital with a $15,000 grant has grown into the Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics, serving 20,000 children a year – many of whom might otherwise get no routine pediatric care – at 30 full- or part-time clinics from Fort Collins to Fountain, and from Fairplay to Benkelman, Neb.
Wolk is the volunteer administrator of a $4 million budget, overseeing 10 doctors, 10 mid-level medical providers (physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners) and 35 support personnel serving 50,000 patient visits a year.
He figures that the medical professionals at Rocky Mountain earn between 25 percent and 50 percent less than what they could on the open market.
“They’re working for us because that’s what they want to be doing,” Wolk said. “I always tell them, ‘If you’re working here for the money, you’re working at the wrong place.”‘
One afternoon a week, he sees patients at the Presbyterian-St. Luke’s site of Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics.
Otherwise, he is the volunteer administrator, whose service is worth $100,000 a year to the organization. He is able to do this because he has a “day job,” ironically, as the chief medical officer for HMS Healthcare, a health-care company that provides network access and medical management services.
As the nonprofit clinics have grown over the years, Wolk has garnered many honors, including a profile in People magazine, and most recently the 2004 National Philanthropy Day Volunteer of the Year.
According to that citation, Wolk was “not content to stand by while children in Colorado lack adequate health care. … He felt that it was unfair to punish children for their parents’ financial situation.”
In the award announcement, Lynne Hedrick, senior vice president of patient-care services at The Children’s Hospital, was quoted as saying, “Through years of selfless work, he has ensured that tens of thousands of children receive the health care they deserve.”
Wolk lives in Englewood with his wife of 15 years, Helene – a former nurse at Children’s whom he met on a ski date while training at the hospital – and four children.
He was born outside Scranton, Pa., on March 21, 1962. He got his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his medical degree from the University of Vermont.
Wolk came to Denver in 1988 for his training in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Children’s and the University of Colorado, where he also earned a master’s degree in public health.
His father was a pediatrician, and he grew up with a certain comfort level about being a doctor.
“I think that was the environment that I grew up in,” he said. “I wasn’t sure that I always wanted to be a pediatrician. But my brother became a physician. My sister has a master’s in nutrition. So, we all were kind of influenced to have health-care careers.”
He was a camp counselor when he was younger and always enjoyed working with kids. Wolk considered other medical specialties, but he found working with youngsters more rewarding.
“I had a saying, ‘When kids are sick, they act like sick kids. When adults are sick, they act like sick kids.’ You might as well see the age-appropriate population.”
While Wolk was in his residency at Children’s, he also worked in a clinic at Denver Health Medical Center.
“My experience at both places kind of showed me that there was a lot of need out there and, potentially, a lot of need that wasn’t being met by the traditional sources,” Wolk said.
He wanted to create a private practice with a public health philosophy.
Rocky Mountain Youth does traditional “walk-in” type clinics, but it also serves uninsured babies at clinics and hospitals, and it also participates in a literacy program, has a clothing and toy exchange, and sometimes has food for needy families.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
