Working to achieve equitable access to healthcare services in Whatcom County

We are excited to announce that we have partnered with North Sound ACH and The Common Goodness Project to present a free professional development opportunity.

Join us for Creating Spaces of Belonging for LGBTQ+ Clients and Staff on June 22, 2023 from 7am-10am at Catalyst Health. We are excited to hear insight and wisdom from Page as well as engage in meaningful conversations with our colleagues about how we can serve this community better. This course is open to all healthcare providers--no matter the population or specialty, we all engage with members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Please visit The Common Goodness Project to learn more about Page and click here to sign up for the class. 

While you're waiting for this excellent presentation, please also visit North Sound ACH's resource library to explore more opportunities for learning.

Questions? Feel free to email Carli at carli@catalysttherapies.org

Catalyst Community hosted therapists from community clinics to discuss issues related to reimbursement and service provision for underserved communities.  Below are some of the highlights:

What challenges are created by Medicaid's very low reimbursement rate?

- All clinics represented are in agreement that the extremely low reimbursement paid by Medicaid plans is a significant barrier

- Client's with Medicaid often have higher no-show rates which forfeits a treatment time that could have been available to another client

- Client's with Medicaid often have fewer resources to fully participate in therapy for a variety of complex reasons: more difficulty with transportation, less flexibility for scheduling due to work schedules, less 1:1 time with children to follow through with therapy. Very low Medicaid reimbursement makes it so clinics do not have available funding to account for the loss of income caused by missed appointments or to provide any sort of complimentary care that would help these families (i.e. transportation assistance, childcare assistance for the children not in therapy, stipend funds for parents who have to miss work)

- Low reimbursement from insurance makes it difficult to afford to offer competitive wages to therapist. Fewer providers means longer wait times for clients.

-Some clinics must limit the number of Medicaid clients being seen at a time because each visit billed to Medicaid is lost income. This creates further inequity for folks with Medicaid trying to access care.

What would our local clinics/business owners do if there were not a gap in reimbursement from Medicaid?

- Hire more staff to see more patients

- Pay therapists better to help with retention and recruitment

- Build caseloads evenly so there aren't a disproportionate number of folks with Medicaid on waitlists

- See patient's longer

- Offer free/low cost programming outside of 1:1 therapy like social groups, parenting classes, support groups, homework help, etc.

- Hire administrative staff so therapists can focus on being the best therapists

- Offer more continuing education to staff

- Pay for access to more research journals so we can stay on the cutting edge 

Other suggestions from participants

- Build a discussion board for providers to centralize expert knowledge about insurance billing, operations, and expand problem solving

- Community providers would like to meet quarterly to make sure that collectively Whatcom county is being taken care of as well as possible

-Centralize waitlists or build in better communication to optimize access to care

Thank you so much to the participants at this event: 

Catalyst Therapies

Bellingham Pediatric Therapy

SproutsNW

Connections

Pediatric NDT and SI Therapy Services

Whatcom Center for Early Learning

Western Washington Speech Language and Hearing Clinic

Peace Health Children's Therapy