Plugging the health insurance gap
29 01 08 - 11:14
A program funded with a state grant helps uninsured people get the physician care and medicines they need.
By Lisa Finneran | 247-7470
January 29, 2008
NEWPORT NEWS -
Dinat Minor knows what will happen if she can't afford to buy her insulin.
First comes the headache and nausea. Then she gets too sick to get out of bed. Eventually she could wind up in the hospital, like she did in November.
"When I'm sick like that I can't take care of my kids, I can't work," she said.
Minor was uninsured and living in Portsmouth in November 2006 when she was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. The most common form, it occurs when the body does not respond correctly to the hormone insulin, causing high levels of sugar in the blood.
At the time she was able to get her medications and treatments for free at the Maryview Foundation Healthcare Center in Portsmouth. Then in June 2007 she got married, and she and her daughter moved to Newport News.
"We ran into a little problem," the 28-year-old Minor said. "My husband, he didn't get insurance through his job."
Without health insurance, Minor couldn't afford the prescription drugs she needed to lower her blood sugar and cholesterol levels. The insulin alone costs $150 a month. Needles are another $25, and test strips for her glucose meter, which measures the amount of sugar in her blood, are $50. And that's not including two other pills she takes for her diabetes and the Lipitor she takes to lower her cholesterol.
"I thought there was no more hope," Minor said.
That is, until she saw a brochure from the Patient Advocate Foundation's new Virginia Cares Uninsured Program. The foundation, a national nonprofit based in Newport News, started its program for uninsured Virginians in July with a $250,000 state grant.
Minor is one of the more than 780 uninsured Virginians who contacted the foundation seeking help in the first 110 days of the program. Of those, 300 have been assigned case managers who are working with the patients to line up medications at no cost to them and doctor visits at 100 clinics, hospitals and offices across the state.
"It's just been amazing to see," said Nancy Davenport-Ennis, president and chief executive officer of the Patient Advocate Foundation. "To go from ground zero to this number of referrals is quite phenomenal."
Davenport-Ennis said the foundation noticed in 2006 that the number of uninsured Virginians calling them for help was increasing. Many were unable to get insurance on their own but did not qualify for Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor.
So, with the help of Del. Phil Hamilton, R-Newport News, they approached the Virginia General Assembly and in 2007 received $250,000 to develop a program to help uninsured residents get the health care they need.
Of Virginia's 7.6 million residents, about 1 million - or 13 percent - do not have health insurance, according to Cover the Uninsured, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Only about 250,000 of those qualify for Medicaid, Davenport-Ennis said.
The problem isn't unique to Virginia. Nationwide more than 44 million people do not have health insurance, according to Cover the Uninsured.
And that's why the foundation hopes to expand its uninsured program to other states. Davenport-Ennis said they have talked with officials in California and Florida, and are hoping to meet with the governor of Kentucky soon.
In addition to coordinating care and negotiating with doctors and drug companies, caseworkers try to find health insurance for these patients.
"But that's difficult, because these patients have pre-existing conditions," Davenport-Ennis said.
When Minor called the foundation, she spoke with an intake coordinator who wanted to know her insurance status, her income and if anyone else in her family was working. By that time she had used the last of her insulin and the family's income was less than $11,000 a year.
"They helped me get some more medicine, they got me what I needed," she said. "And they found me doctors that would see me."
Need help?
To qualify for the Virginia Cares Uninsured Program, also known as VCUP, uninsured patients must be:
Legal residents of the United States
. Currently living in Virginia
. Diagnosed with a chronic, life-threatening or debilitating disease
For more information:
Call 873-6668 or 1-800-532-5274
E-mail help@patientadvocate.org