News Archive

Loudoun Community Health Center
Makes Every Dollar Count

Health Care Homes Save Lives and Dollars

Because our patients have an established health care home, they have improved odds for good health. They receive continuous primary health care services that reduce the risk of new health problems and manage chronic disease. This results in fewer hospitalizations and visits to the ER and reduces the need for specialty care services. Moreover, regular use of a primary health care provider is directly linked to lower morbidity and reduced health care costs.

The Loudoun Community Health Center provides a health care home for vulnerable populations who would otherwise not have access to primary care and preventive services, such as immunizations, health education, mammograms, pap smears, and other screenings. In fact, across the country, low-income, uninsured health center users are also much more likely to have a usual source of care than the uninsured.

Our doctors are not volunteers; they are full-time employees. This guarantees that our patients will have a doctor caring for them whom they can call their own and who can follow their medical history and progress carefully. This prevents unnecessary extra visits to see many different doctors who are unfamiliar with a particular patient’s special needs.

In addition, the Loudoun Community Health Center is the ONLY facility in Loudoun County that cares for children and the elderly, as well as adults, meaning we are the medical home for the entire family.

Lower Costs of Care

Community Health Centers’ average annual cost of care is $515 per patient, or about $1.40 a day per patient served. This is 10 times less than the average per capita spending on personal health care. Surprisingly this savings even includes an array of enabling services such as case management, transportation, translation, and health education. Many health centers also provide dental, behavioral health, and pharmacy services. In addition, health center per patient costs grows slower than national per capita health expenditures.

Cost Effective Care

Care received at Community Health Centers is ranked among the most cost-effective. Health centers are credited with reducing hospitalizations, inpatient days, and ER use, generating significant returns on investment while improving community health.

• Medicaid savings. Several studies found that health centers save the Medicaid program roughly 30% in annual spending per Medicaid beneficiary due to lower specialty care referrals, ER visits, hospital admissions, and prescription drug costs. Community Health Center Medicaid beneficiaries were 11% less likely to be hospitalized and 19% less likely to use the ER for preventive conditions compared to Medicaid beneficiaries seen by other providers. Health centers therefore generate significant savings in combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures.
• Effective Management of Chronic Illness. Health centers’ efforts have improved health outcomes and lowered the costs of treating patients with chronic illnesses. In a recent study in South Carolina, health center Medicaid patients with diabetes cost $400 less per patient than diabetic Medicaid patients treated by family practice physicians, despite having more office visits per patient as well as more patients with multiple chronic diseases. Lower ER and hospital visits, as well as lower costs for specialists, labs, and other services, were responsible for these savings. Average payments per hospitalization were $1,100 less for Community Health Center patients than family practice physician patients.
• Preventing Avoidable Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits. Patients living in underserved areas with a health center have 5.8 fewer preventable hospitalizations per 1,000 people over 3 years than patients who live in areas that do not have a health center. If avoidable visits to ERs were redirected to health centers, the nation could save over $18 billion in annual health care costs.

Caring for the Community’s Medically Underserved

The national network of Community Health Centers provides high quality and affordable primary and preventive care to 17 million low-income and medically underserved patients. Health centers bring culturally appropriate care to 1 in 5 low-income, uninsured individuals and 1 in 9 Medicaid beneficiaries. Research shows that the quality of their care is better than the quality of care at other providers. Health centers reduce the need for more expensive in-patient and specialty care services as well as lower Emergency Room (ER) visits, saving billions of tax payer dollars each year.