Tri-County Project Care - Project Care Offers Hope

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Project Care Offers Hope
Source: Post and Courier, January 24, 2003
Written by: Jonathan Maze

Local health care providers give hand to poor

Jayme Murray, a 25-year-old single mother, lost her health insurance when she moved to Charleston a year ago. Soon after, she was told she needed surgery to remove a cyst from her ovary.

The surgery would have cost her close to $10,000.

BRAD NETTLES/POST & COURIER STAFF

Dr. Casey Fitts (left) and Stuart Foss, Project Care provider relations coordinator, review a prospective client's application Thursday. Project Care provides health care to people without health insurance.

Seemingly out of options, Murray's mother told her about Project Care, a local effort to provide care to the working poor who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private health insurance. Murray signed up, and a month ago had the surgery.

Her co-payment was just $100.

"I (had been) paying for everything," Murray recalled. "Then (the doctors) were talking about surgery. I was like, 'Whoa, I can't afford that.' Luckily, my mom found out about Project Care."

Now at the end of its first year, Project Care has treated more than 1,100 people, and has delivered more than $2 million in health care, much of it through in-kind donations from hospitals and doctors in its network.

Its success to date has caused health care professionals across South Carolina to take notice.

Area hospitals estimate the region's 135,000 "uninsured encounters" each year equate to a $50 million combined loss.

Should it take off, Project Care promises to help offset those losses.

In starting up, Project Care projected it would see 1,500 patients in its first year and have as many as 5,000 after the third year. The latter goal is still in place, but the effort's leaders quickly learned that they had to take it slow early on, to get the word out.

"We had the usual growing pains of starting a small business," said Dr. Casey Fitts, a local surgeon and the program's creator.

Fitts believes the effort can in the long-run help lower health care costs by encouraging patients to see their doctors regularly, thus catching problems before they become expensive to treat.

The program reimburses doctors as an incentive to them to see patients. Early on, physicians signing on agreed to provide care at only half the cost. Now the program reimburses physicians at 60 percent, and Fitts said the ultimate goal is to pay doctors 100 percent of their cost. Project Care says it has more than 1,000 Charleston area physicians signed up.

"The free programs in the long run are unsustainable," said Frank Rupp, Project Care's program manager. "You can't get enough doctors."

Project Care has drawn statewide attention. Fitts recently made a presentation to Gov. Sanford's Health Care Task Force.

Also, Fitts and Rupp are on a South Carolina Department of Insurance committee that plans to make recommendations to the governor and legislators on health care issues to the uninsured and underinsured, as well as on how to help small businesses find affordable health insurance for their workers. Rupp said those recommendations will be made in July.

So far, Project Care has been funded through cash and in-kind donations from doctors and hospitals. The Medical Society of South Carolina, the nonprofit owner of Roper Hospital in Charleston, is providing $2.5 million for each of the effort's first three years. Local hospitals have together committed $2 million. Charleston County and the Duke Endowment have also provided money.

To be eligible, a person must be a resident of Charleston, Berkeley or Dorchester counties. They must be employed, between the ages of 19-64 and unable to qualify for Medicaid or afford private health insurance.

They also must be between 125 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level - or earning between $18,287 and $29,260 for a family of three.

Members don't pay premiums, but they are responsible for making certain co-payments, like $20 for an office visit, $50 for a stop in the emergency room or $100 for inpatient services.