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Great publicity for Alliance Medical! Give the gift of health this holiday season. Go to our website and download the holiday giving program...give a gift in honor or memory of someone this holiday season. With your help more Wake County families can look forward to a healthy and happy 2010. http://raleighdowntowner.com/RaleighDowntowner-Vol5-Iss11.pdf
http://raleighdowntowner.com/RaleighDowntowner-Vol5-Iss11.pdf
The leadership of Alliance Medical Ministry want to say a special thank you to our beloved volunteers, board members and generous supporters during this special time of year. Without you all, Alliance would not have the wonderful opportunity to serve the thousands of uninsured individuals in our community. We wish everybody a safe, healthy and proserous Thanksgiving Holiday.
November 18, 2009 Chapel Hill, NC - The US Preventive Services Task Force's (USPSTF) recommendations regarding breast cancer screening have touched off a heated national debate. Lost in this tumult is one critical recommendation that everyone agrees upon: average risk women aged 50-74 years old should get regular breast cancer screening with mammography. In addition, women aged 40-49 years who are at higher than average risk (due to genetic factors, family history or medical history) should continue to get regular screening. No matter where this breast cancer screening discussion takes us, we should not lose sight of this.
Of course, this doesn’t help women aged 40-49 years who are caught in the middle of this evidence cross-fire. One expert group says this, another says that. What will my insurance company pay for? What should I do?
Clinicians are also caught in the middle. Where do I stand? Which experts do I believe? What should I tell my patients and their families when they ask?
The USPSTF, the American Cancer Society, and other expert groups have put forth recommendations they believe are based on a comprehensive and fair review of the existing evidence. They have reached different conclusions. A national debate has begun and it seems that everyone is being asked to take sides. Rather than rush to judgment, what's needed is a careful airing out of the issues and evidence. UNC, with experts like Dr. Etta Pisano (a radiologist who led development of digital mammography), Dr. Russell Harris (an expert on cancer screening), Dr. Michael Pignone (an expert in patient/physician decision-making), and an outstanding breast cancer clinical team (led by Dr. Lisa Carey, Dr. David Ollila, and Dr. Larry Marks) has the expertise and experience to help mold this debate.
In the meantime, what do we do? Along with expert consensus, it seems that clarity has evaporated. But, has it? We should ask ourselves whether the breast cancer screening landscape changed so much as to be totally unrecognizable. The answer is "no."
The USPSTF's new recommendation is against routine screening, not screening altogether. They recommend that women aged 40-49 years and their physicians should decide when screening should start after taking into account how each individual feels about the benefits and harms of screening. For women in this age group and for those who support the USPSTF, breast cancer screening mammography remains an important option -- just not a hard and fast standard.
The fear, of course, is that younger women will now hear a mixed message and decide against mammography -- not only in their 40's but in their 50's and beyond. There is also worry that third party payers may now use this recommendation as an excuse for not paying for this screening test. These are important worries that must be addressed as we move forward.
For now, until we have fully examined and weighed the USPSTF's challenge to the status quo, the prudent action seems to be to continue to look to current guidelines. Whatever happens, women aged 50-74 should continue to get regular breast cancer screening and breast cancer screening should continue to be a choice for women aged 40-49.
Whatever happens, UNC will have the expertise and experience to help.
| Shelley Earp, MD
Director
Michael O’Malley, PhD Associate Director |
Supporters and Friends, Enjoy dinner out with friends or family and save on early holiday shopping, all while also helping Alliance Medical Ministry.
This week, a few North Hills merchants are offering shopping/dining discounts or a percentage of sales back to AMM for shoppers/diners who present the attached flyer at the time of purchase. The shopping days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week – November 17, 18 and 19. See the attached flyer for more specific details. This is a great opportunity to get into the holiday spirit and help our neighbors in need. Please forward the flyer to your friends so they can save and Alliance can help the working uninsured.
Read the News & Observer article below detailing all those Triangle area nonprofits who will receive the 2009 GSK IMPACT Awards!
posted on Friday, Nov. 06, 2009, News & Observer
GlaxoSmithKline has one of its two U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, where the company also has research and development facilities focused on metabolic and viral diseases. The company employs about 5,600 people in the Triangle.
GARNER -- Editor's note: This fall, The N&O is talking to people about the nation's health care system: what works, what doesn't and what should be done to fix it.
With her diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol under control, Gail Johnson expects to be around to see her grandchildren grow up. But the 56-year-old figures she'll die long before she's able to pay off her hospital bills.
"I don't even know how much I owe WakeMed. That's how bad it is," she says, guessing it's well over $20,000.
ohnson amassed that debt doing what uninsured Americans do millions of times each year when they get sick: Go to a hospital emergency room.Emergency rooms have become the U.S. health care system's safety net, where anyone can go for treatment and no one can be turned away because they can't pay in advance.
But experts say using emergency care in place of checkups and doctor visits is the most expensive way to deal with chronic illness. Many of the 119.2 million emergency visits racked up in 2006 were for problems that could have been prevented through regular primary care. More than 17 percent of those visits - nearly 21 million - were made by patients who had no insurance, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
The average emergency room bill is about $1,300; much more if the patient is admitted. A visit to a doctor's office starts around $75.
But hospitals are required to take patients who have no insurance and no ability to pay; they bill later and hope to collect. Doctors' offices require proof of insurance or payment at the time of service.
Johnson's was a typical case.
During her 27-year marriage, she says, she was insured through her husband's policy at work. When they split up more than a decade ago, she lost her coverage. She found work, but never with benefits.
So she went years without going to a doctor, a dentist or an ophthalmologist. She didn't realize her blood sugar was out of whack, and her blood pressure and cholesterol were rising. The first time she went to the WakeMed emergency room, she had a major kidney infection and severe dehydration.
Emergency physicians got Johnson stabilized and referred her to an endocrinology practice in Raleigh. At about $80 each, office visits cost more than a fourth of Johnson's weekly take-home pay. Johnson filled her prescriptions when she had the money.
But most of the time, medications she was supposed to take daily, she took every other day or every other week to make them last, a practice her doctor later said would tax her kidneys worse than taking none at all.
Once when she checked her blood sugar at home, the meter pegged at the top of the scale. Her blood sugar had gone off the chart. She was at risk for a stroke.
For several years, Johnson went to the emergency room one to three times a year, not uncommon for uninsured patients, according to the Center for Health Statistics.
An unhealthy cycle
Nearly six years ago, Johnson got a data-entry job at a mortgage-servicing company in Garner with about 10 employees. The owner has looked into providing health insurance for the staff several times. But each time, Johnson says, the rep comes in, looks over the applications of the mostly young and healthy staff, then stops at Johnson's.
"I throw the whole thing off," she says, "because of my age and pre-existing conditions."
One health care reform proposal would help people buy insurance through an "exchange" whose companies could not deny coverage or price it exorbitantly because of pre-existing conditions.
Johnson sees another possible solution: the proliferation of places like Alliance Medical Ministry, a nonprofit that opened in 2003 nearWakeMed in Raleigh to provide affordable primary care to the working poor.
Dr. Tara Lewis, medical director for Alliance, says about 90 percent of the patients who come for treatment have no insurance and no regular doctor, and have been off needed medications so long they have gotten sick enough to require a trip to an emergency room. After treating them, ER staff now send many of their patients to Alliance to try to break that cycle.
Lewis, a small staff of part-time physicians and 250 volunteers work with about 7,500 patients in a renovated church. In addition, Alliance operates an acute-care clinic for same-day visits. Acute care costs $25. Primary-care visits are charged on a sliding scale; most are $15 each.
Alliance doctors can't do everything, and every day Lewis sees patients who need a specialist's care and can't afford it.
"We hear it all the time," Lewis says. "We want to order a test, and the first question is, 'How much is that going to cost?'"
So the cycle begins again, Lewis says.
When patients repeatedly ignore health problems until they have an emergency, their overall health suffers and everyone's costs increase, including those of insured patients who help absorb the hospital costs of those who can't pay.
Still not in the clear
Johnson, the patient, thinks she owes her life to Alliance doctors. Regular visits and counseling on how to manage her diabetes probably averted a stroke or heart attack, she says. And just as important, she says, "Alliance gave me my dignity back."
Lately, though, Johnson has been retaining fluid and her blood pressure has been unstable. She needs a chest X-ray and an electrocardiogram. Another trip to WakeMed, another bill she can't pay.
It's been at least three weeks. She still hasn't made the appointment.
Head to St. Pauls Christian Church this Saturday, October 31st between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm for their Fall Marketplace where more than 25 vendors will be on hand offering many wonderful crafts and gifts. The Marketplace Cafe will have their famous homemade ham biscuits on hand, something one can NOT miss!
All proceeds will go towards community outreach projects including those hosted by Alliance Medical Ministry. Thank you for going out to support us and other great community organizations! 
Alliance Medical Ministry
101 Donald Ross Drive
Raleigh, NC 27610
Phone (919) 250-3320 Fax (919) 250-3322
CLINIC HOURS:
Monday - Wednesday 8:15 AM - 4:00 PM Thursday 8:15 AM -12:00 PM and 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM
Friday 8:15 AM - 4:00 PM
Closing daily 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM for lunch
