Project Access Now

Programs: Community assistance many times, when low-income people are discharged from a hospital stay or emergency room visit, they face barriers that can stand in the way of their recovery. With the community assistance program, we support discharge planners, social workers, and care managers to connect low-income patients to the resources they need for a safe discharge. These resources may include transportation, temporary housing, and medication assistance. Providence health & services has been our development partner with this initiative and kaiser permanente is also using this resource. The same structure is also being utilized by healthshare and familycare as a way to support the non-medical needs of their medicaid members. In the 2017 fiscal year, we provided 16,663 services (transportation, food, medications, and housing for safe hospital discharge).

outreach, enrollment and access for those who qualify, obtaining and using insurance coverage is a critical element of a sustainable health care system. This program provides outreach and enrollment around medicaid, qualified health plans, and other coverage programs available in our community. Enrolling in coverage is daunting to most people. It is nearly impossible for those most in need. Enrollment is not enough. In order to assure people can actually use the coverage they have, staff provides health literacy and navigation services. This program also provides premium assistance to people who qualify for tax credits through the marketplace. Many families are right on the line in terms of income qualification for medicaid. If they make $10 more than allowed they have access to the marketplace. However, the premiums, co-pays and co-insurance costs are not affordable for this population. We are able to pay premiums and arrange for co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles to be written off in many cases. Ideally, we are able to keep people connected to coverage and care as they go through the inevitable churn of qualifying for and then not qualifying medicaid. We enrolled 18,051 applicants into a qualified health plan (qhp or the oregon health plan) in fiscal year 2017.

project access now classic / donated care coordination services project access now continues to work with safety net clinics, all of the health systems and most of the major specialty and multi-specialty clinics in the portland metro area to provide donated care to those who remain uninsured and who meet specific income guidelines. The majority are immigrants, documented and undocumented, who are unable to receive health insurance coverage under the affordable care act or medicaid expansion. As a result, access to care is even more challenging and expensive for this population than people before the aca. The people we serve need project access now today, more than ever. There were 3,825 referrals which resulted in 3,753 completed services in fiscal year 2017.