Inside the Clinic - GET CARE Edition
Each week, our Executive Director, Anne-Lise Quinn, sends out a Clinic Update to the staff. In an effort to keep our wider community updated about the happenings inside Culmore Clinic, we will be posting an annotated version of this update to our blog each week under the Inside the Clinic tag.
Greetings Culmore Clinic Community!
So, your humble ED was invited to a meeting yesterday with Senator Warner and some of our other health partners in Northern Virginia to talk about health equity. We have regular opportunities to talk with local/County partners about the struggles our patients face, and how to help them, but it’s always good to bring those issues directly to our elected officials.
The importance of telehealth, improved internet access in “digital deserts”, drug price regulation, and PPE availability were among the topics of discussion; and we were also given the opportunity to comment on a new bill Senators Warner and Scott (South Carolina) introduced, called the “GET CARE” Act (“Getting Early Treatment and Comprehensive Assessments Reduces Emergencies”) that would authorize a public awareness campaign to increase the utilization of preventative health services.
As you may know, during the pandemic there has been a documented drop in routine preventative medical interventions – check-ups, screenings, diagnostic panels, elective procedures et cetera – that play a critical role in detecting diseases and medical conditions. The GET CARE Act bill seeks to address this.
In the background to this bill (see below), it seems that while the number of preventative care services has dropped during the pandemic, it is nevertheless a chronic problem, to wit: “if everyone in the U.S. received recommended preventative care, then the health care system could save over 100,000 lives a year” (from a 2009 CDC study); and “chronic diseases that are avoidable through preventive care services account for more than 75% of the nation’s health care spending.”
WOW!
I bet you have lots of questions and thoughts when you see data like this. I do, too. One that struck me was this: Surely, most of us these days understand the importance of preventative care; indeed, isn’t that part of a basic middle- and high-school education? If so, then why are so many of us not getting that care? And who among us is less likely to be adding these wellness check-ups to their annual calendar?
Well, I’m not a gamblin’ woman, but I’ll still wager that this data points directly to the hundreds of thousands across our nation who don’t have health insurance (even with employment); those who do not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare; those living paycheck to paycheck; and those who have some basic insurance, but have cripplingly high deductibles and coinsurance that they can’t afford if they do end up with an acute or chronic condition.
Too many people around us are faced with terrible choices: a father who knows colon cancer runs in his family, but if he has to choose between spending three months’ rent on having a colonoscopy and taking a chance that he is the lucky one in the family, he’ll choose the latter; or a mom who hopes the lump she found in her breast will just disappear or is benign because she doesn’t have sick leave and might lose custody of her kids if she loses her job.
And let’s not forget the impact on mental health – one of the top illnesses we see at Culmore Clinic – from chronic stress like this.
It doesn’t need to be this way.
I sure hope the public awareness campaign encourages folk, who otherwise would get preventative care, back to their medical providers; but I also hope that our legislators really look at the root cause of this problem – beyond COVID-19 - and come up with a more effective solution to save the estimated 100,000 precious lives lost each year.
Meanwhile, I am so happy to be part of the amazing Culmore Clinic team - doing the right thing by our most vulnerable neighbors in providing a top-quality primary health service and making sure they get the preventative and ongoing care they need, pandemic or no.
As we prepare to rest and relax for a week, honor Labor Day, get kids settled in virtual school, and enjoy the last balmy days of summer, I look forward to us all returning with renewed vigor for a busy fall/winter season ahead tending to our dear patients!
You are ALL the very best of humankind!
Anne-Lise
Culmore Clinic Executive Director
