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THIS ISSUE AVAILABLE ONLINE WITH EXPANDED INFORMATION AND PHOTOS
AT:
www.hhs.gov/news/newsletter/weekly
IN THIS ISSUE:
1) HHS awards nearly
$10 Million to plan, expand community-based HIV/AIDS Care
2) Secretary Thompson
announces a PPO pilot program for Medicare
3) HRSA's Duke takes
grants to three community health centers
4) Charles W. Grim,
D.D.S., M.H.S.A., appointed as Indian Health Service Interim
Director
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HHS awards nearly $10 Million to plan, expand community-based HIV/AIDS Care
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on Friday, August 30, announced 99 grants totaling nearly $10 million to help rural, underserved and minority communities plan for, increase care and services, and provide dental care for people living with HIV or at risk of infection.
"Many communities across America continue to experience extreme difficulties in providing high-quality health care services to their residents living with HIV/AIDS," Secretary Thompson said. "These grants will help those communities fill that need and ensure that more Americans are able to obtain care."
Secretary Thompson visited Arizona on August 30 to present a check for nearly $200,000 to the Kino Community Hospital in Tucson to help people living with HIV/AIDS obtain quality dental care.
The Secretary was joined by Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona, formerly the Medical Director of the hospital and a longtime advocate of providing sound, accessible care to vulnerable populations.
"People living with HIV or AIDS in underserved areas often have difficulty getting the dental care they require," Thompson said. "This grant, and 11 others like it throughout the country, will help thousands of people living with HIV gain access to the dental care they need."
The awards are made under the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, which is administered by HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration through its HIV/AIDS Bureau. The awards announced today include:
§ 58 one-year planning grants totaling $2,873,663, which help communities
plan activities that will lead to a comprehensive continuum of outpatient HIV
primary care services;
§ 29 capacity building grants totaling $3,965,343 to
help organizations develop, enhance or expand high quality HIV/AIDS primary care
services; and
§ 12 community-based dental partnership grants totaling
$2,956,588, which help train and educate students and residents enrolled in
dental education programs who provide care for people with HIV under the
direction of dentists in the community.
Typical Title III services include HIV counseling and testing, medical evaluation and outpatient clinical care. CARE Act programs help an estimated 530,000 poor and uninsured individuals with HIV/AIDS obtain primary health care, support services and life-sustaining medications each year. The new community-based dental partnership program is funded under Part F of the CARE Act.
Since the CARE Act was first funded in fiscal year 1991, nearly $10 billion has been awarded in grants to provide needed health care and associated services for people living with HIV/AIDS.
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Secretary Thompson announces a PPO pilot program for Medicare
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced the creation of a Medicare + Choice Pilot Project that will provide greater choices to Medicare beneficiaries.
A total of 33 new health plans in 23 states will begin to serve Medicare beneficiaries in January as part of a demonstration program modeled after the preferred provider organization (PPO) coverage available to the vast majority of Americans under age 65.
"This is an important step toward extending quality care to all Americans. Medicare beneficiaries deserve the same choice and quality of service that other Americans enjoy," Secretary Thompson said. "These pilot programs will do that. It's part of this Administration's effort to make Medicare live up to its promise for our seniors."
Until now, Medicare beneficiaries generally could only choose between two models of care - fee-for-service coverage or a closed network HMO. Many Americans under 65 have been choosing a third option - PPOs, which blend the two approaches.
The 33 PPO plans announced by the Secretary will be part of a new Medicare demonstration program that more closely mirrors the preferred provider type of coverage popular in the private sector but previously unavailable to Medicare beneficiaries. This demonstration program is a big step toward making these plans widely available to seniors and may permit hundreds of thousands of seniors to get more affordable drug coverage.
Enrollees will have more flexibility than is available through existing Medicare HMOs, but will still enjoy richer benefits than those available in the original Medicare program. Beneficiaries will be able to enroll in these new plans beginning in November, the Medicare health plan open enrollment period, with coverage beginning Jan. 1, 2003.
The new PPO option will be available to about 11 million Medicare beneficiaries - 30 percent of all seniors - in parts or all of 23 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington.
The demonstration plans will be considered Medicare+Choice plans and must
offer all of Medicare's required benefits, but will also have the flexibility to
offer greater access to drug benefits and disease management services. Most
important, they will offer beneficiaries a wider choice of health care providers
than is currently offered in HMOs.
Many Medicare beneficiaries are expected to choose the PPO option as a way to obtain prescription drug coverage and as an alternative to supplemental insurance plans, which often do not cover drugs and, when they do, can be prohibitively expensive for many seniors.
The cost sharing features of the plans (co-payments and deductibles) vary according to which health care providers are selected. Medicare beneficiaries can weigh these costs against the benefits and provider choices available in picking a plan - just as Americans under 65 do.
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HRSA's Duke takes grants to three community health centers
Three community health centers recently received a personal visit from HRSA Administrator Betty Duke and a hand-delivered check to bolster their ability to provide high-quality care in their medically underserved communities.
In August, Duke traveled to Mena, Ark., and Lincoln and Baldwin in Michigan to deliver checks on behalf of HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. The awards were three of 350 grants totaling $94 million released during July and August to create new health centers or expand services at existing centers as part of the Health Centers Presidential Initiative.
That initiative, announced by President Bush last year, will increase the annual number of patients served at health centers to 16 million by 2006, up from just over 10 million currently. The plan will require HRSA to fund 1,200 new or expanded health center sites over that time frame, a substantial increase over the 3,400 sites that HRSA currently supports.
For fiscal year 2003, the President is asking Congress for almost $1.5 billion for health centers - a $114 million increase over this year's budget and a two-year hike of almost $280 million.
In Mena, HRSA's check for $827,004 will support a new health center run by Healthy Connections Inc. to provide much-needed medical, dental, mental health and substance abuse services to residents of Polk County and surrounding areas.
Two health centers in Michigan - the Alcona Citizen's Health Center in Lincoln and Baldwin Family Health Care in Baldwin - received checks of $524,602 and $496,847, respectively, to expand services at existing health centers
As the sole health care provider for several counties near Lake Michigan, Baldwin Family Health Care is "a lifeline" for the more than 18,000 patients it serves each year, said Duke. The health center will use the funds to expand its primary health care and mental health services.
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Charles W. Grim, D.D.S., M.H.S.A., appointed as Indian Health Service Interim Director
Charles W. Grim, D.D.S., M.H.S.A., a native of Oklahoma and a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, was appointed by President George W. Bush as the Interim Director of the Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Grim was appointed on August 12.
He will remain Interim Director until a permanent director is nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate.
As Interim Director, Dr. Grim will administer a nationwide multi-billion dollar health care delivery program composed of 12 administrative Area (Regional) Offices, which oversee local hospitals and clinics. The IHS is responsible for providing preventive, curative, and community health care services to approximately 1.6 million of the Nation's 2.6 million American Indians and Alaska Natives. The IHS is the principal federal health care provider and health advocate for Indian people.
Dr. Grim began his career with the IHS in 1983. He left his position as the Oklahoma City Area Director before this appointment and has held various positions at the field and Area levels. Dr. Grim was appointed to the commissioned corps of the U.S. Public Health Service in July 1983 and currently holds the rank of Rear Admiral
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