By Sharon Salyer
Herald Writer
About 24,000 Healthy Options patients in Snohomish County will have a little more choice on where they get their medical care next year.
Group Health will accept 2,000 adult and child patients of Healthy Options, the state’s health plan for the low-income and working poor, rejoining a program they and four other health plans left this year in Snohomish County.
"It’s an advantage if you can sign up with a plan and be assured you’ll get care, but a lot of people don’t do it," said Bob Moore, Group Health’s executive director of state and federal accounts.
If they have not been members of health care plans before they may not know much about them, he said.
"It means they’ve got guaranteed access to physicians and other needed care," he said. Without being signed up with a health care plan, Healthy Options patients "have to hunt and peck" for health care, he said.
Annual letters will go out this week notifying Healthy Options patients in Snohomish County that they can sign up with a health plan for medical coverage next year, said Jim Stevenson, a spokesman for the state Department of Social and Health Services.
About 6,000 Healthy Options patients are expected to receive their care from the nonprofit Community Health Center of Snohomish County and Sea Mar in Smokey Point.
Two other health plans are also rejoining the Healthy Options program in Snohomish County on a limited basis next year.
Five hundred patients can have health care coverage through Regence BlueShield, mostly Stanwood-area patients of the Stanwood Camano Medical Center.
"We only dip into Snohomish County right there in the Stanwood area" for Healthy Options patients, said Regence spokesman Chris Bruzzo.
Another group of 500 patients in south Snohomish County can get their health insurance through Molina, formerly known as QualMed, Stevenson said.
Everyone else will use medical coupons, which provide free medical service for patients if medical clinics accept new patients using them.
Last year, the state rejected bids from five health plans, Aetna, Group Health, Molina, Northwest Washington Medical Bureau and Regence to provide medical care to Healthy Options patients this year in Snohomish County.
Many area medical clinics said they would provide medical care to existing, but not new, Healthy Options patients because of low reimbursement rates from the state.
This strained the nonprofit Community Health Center of Snohomish County, medical clinics in Everett and Lynnwood that provide care to area residents without health care insurance.
"We have seen a big hit," said Desmond Skubi, executive director of the Community Health Center of Snohomish County.
The community health care clinics saw 5,232 patients seeking care with medical coupons during July, August and September, a 57 percent increase over last year’s levels, Skubi said.
Private medical clinics tried to preserve access to established Healthy Options patients this year, he said. "For new patients, there’s limited access."
Since welfare reform, Healthy Options, the state’s Medicaid plan, is the way many working poor get their health care, he said. Pregnant women and children are the two largest groups of Healthy Options patients, he said.
You can call Herald Writer Sharon Salyer at 425-339-3486
or send e-mail to salyer@heraldnet.com.
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