BRADENTON A panel of medical experts told the Manatee County Commission on Tuesday the only way to curb the costs tied to indigent health care will be more preventative treatment.
Southwest Florida’s medical industry has closely mirrored national trends now pushing the system’s strain on businesses and taxpayers to near record highs, while access to care is shrinking.
Agencies tasked with treating the area’s ill gathered for a commission work session Tuesday afternoon to address those concerns and vet potential solutions.
Presenters agreed that while Manatee is positioned better than most, more integration between medical providers will become vital to sustaining a strong health care system a community asset essential to economic development.
“For all levels of government, the turning point has come,” said Jonathan Fleece, chairman of the Manatee Healthcare Alliance. “It’s critical to turn this economy around. Health care is costing us a great amount of money, and really hurting our competitiveness as a nation.”
Fleece said even if insurance expenses drop, the overall cost of health care will spike in the coming years due to the proliferation of aging Baby Boomers expected to seek treatment.
A gaping void in primary care physicians also has played a role.
More graduating medical students are entering a specialty because the pay is higher, shrinking the availability of primary care phy
sicians, which typically provide the cheapest option for treatment.
In Manatee alone, there’s a shortage of nearly 100 primary care physicians. Across the country, demand fueled by Baby Boomers is expected to increase that shortage to 62,900 by 2015, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
A new residency program at Manatee Memorial Hospital should help luring more young doctors to the area that typically tend to stay when they graduate the program, said Ray Fusco, chief financial officer for Rural Health Services.
“We have a medical system that’s not really a system at all,” he said. “We’re not getting the return on investment we should be. The only reason doctors come here is because we pay the most.”
Medical officials on Tuesday estimated one in four residents don’t have proper access to care.
When something goes awry with their health, the uninsured visit emergency rooms racking up a $500 bill they may never pay for treatment that could have cost just $30 in an office, Fusco said.
To fully attack the problem, he believes medical providers should treat indigent patients the same way insurers treat their customers. That means a heavy focus on keeping them healthy to avoid back-end treatment entirely.
Those efforts also should subsequently drive down medical expenses at the jails, which a pose $5 million burden on the county each year, records show.
“The greatest asset is access to care, and ‘Houston, we have a problem,’” said Mary Ruiz, president and CEO of Manatee Glens. “When you see homelessness, mentally ill in the jail and behavioral issues in the ER, this is a result of our low access to care.”
As part of the work session Tuesday, representatives from a slew of agencies including Blake Regional Medical Center, LECOM and the Manatee Chamber of Commerce shared issues pertaining to health care and options for integration.
Enhancing some of the preventative programs discussed may require additional seed money, which could present a challenge given the state of the county’s health care trust fund.
The $40 million corpus, netted when the county sold its veterans hospital decades ago, is slated to run dry by 2015.
“Absorbing some of these expenses is much lower than we’ll end up paying long-term,” Commissioner Joe McClash said. “The bottom line is we have a fractured system, and someone needs to pull it all together.”
Commissioners are scheduled to gather for several more health related work sessions over the year. The Manatee Chamber of Commerce also will sponsor an informational health seminar Feb. 29 at its Lakewood Ranch office.
While a work in progress, commissioners said Tuesday they’re headed in the right direction.
“Maybe if nothing else today, we’re seeing there is room for integration,” Commissioner Carol Whitmore said. “We just have to tie it all together.”
Josh Salman, Herald business writer, can be reached at 941-745-7095.
