Many Denver-area health clinics that treat the needy and uninsured are turning away more and more patients as they are overwhelmed by demand.
Patients such as Andrea Reuff, a diabetic who lost her job in August. With only a few days’ supply of insulin left and no health insurance, she frantically called dozens of area clinics last week, only to be told it would be months before she could be seen – or that new patients were not being seen at all.
“I don’t like asking for help and have never been in this situation before, and I am getting scared that I cannot get the medication that I need to sustain my life. Help,” Reuff said in an e-mail last week.
Clinics in business to treat the poor and uninsured say they don’t want to turn anybody away. But as the ranks of people in poverty rises, along with the number of people without health insurance, the numbers who need health care but cannot pay for it have grown beyond the clinics’ ability to care for them.
“The population that has the need is growing so substantially that (clinics) can’t keep up, and they aren’t going to be able to keep up anytime in the future,” said Elizabeth Arenales of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Clinica Campesina serves Lafayette, Louisville and much of Adams County – areas that together have 92,000 residents poor enough to qualify for care at its federally subsidized health centers.
Five years ago, the number of eligible residents was 64,000, according to U.S. census figures.
“We currently are able to care for 25,000” people a year, said Peter Leibig, Clinica chief executive.
Since 2000, “We’ve doubled our capacity” but still can’t keep up with demand, he said. “I think what it’s about is poverty.”
The economic downturn has hit Colorado hard. Medicaid applications doubled in the state from 2003 to 2004, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report released this month.
Colorado’s growth in Medicaid enrollment during that time was the highest in the nation, the report found.
Statewide, the number of Medicaid and uninsured patients seen at 108 community health center sites has jumped 15 percent to 392,000 in the past two years, according to the Colorado Community Health Network.
“We’re taking 600 new patients a month,” Leibig said. “But 600 new people a month means we still have to turn away very large numbers of people every day.”
Two of the clinic’s locations told Reuff they had no openings but to call every day in case someone else canceled an appointment.
In Denver, Inner City Health Centers has seen a 44 percent increase in patients from 2002 to 2004, said chief financial officer Kraig Burleson.
Every Monday, Inner City accepts about 10 new patients on a first-come, first-served basis, he said. But every week, there are many who don’t get in.
“With the demand we’re getting on a daily basis, we could increase the number of people we’re seeing by 25 to 30 percent,” Burleson said.
Amendment 35, which raised the state sales tax on cigarettes, may generate an additional $40 million a year for the clinics, Leibig said.
The clinics, however, probably won’t get any of that money until the end of this year or the beginning of 2006, said Lorez Meinhold, executive director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.
Reuff finally saw a doctor, one day before her insulin ran out and left her facing expensive emergency room care.
Dr. Steve Berman, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital and an advocate for the uninsured, said the state could save millions every year if more patients could get primary care before they get sick enough to go to an emergency room.
“We’ve got to stop this foolishness of limiting access to primary care and then paying more because of increased hospitalization,” Berman said
A bill generated last week by an interim legislative committee would establish the Colorado Primary Care Program, authorizing the state to reimburse doctors who care for low-income uninsured adults with certain chronic medical conditions – such as diabetes.
Meinhold said the bill doesn’t address where money would come from to pay for the primary care. But at least it is focusing attention on the issue, she said.
“We’ve got to address, ‘How do we get people into primary care to avoid sending them to the emergency room where we know cost of care is more,”‘ she said.
Staff writer Karen Auge can be reached at 303-820-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
