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Working to achieve equitable access to healthcare services in Whatcom County
Catalyst Community is a newly formed non-profit organization created with the goal of supporting local therapy clinics financially so they are able to provide care for more people with Medicaid insurance plans. Our goal is to reduce the wait time to access therapies aimed at increasing communication abilities, mobility, feeding and toileting support, independence, and mental healthcare across the county. Specifically, we want to make sure that folks with Medicaid do not have a disproportionately long wait to access these types of services.
The average reimbursement from Medicaid insurance plans for a speech therapy visit is less than the cost it takes to provide the service.
Healthcare providers who provide services to people with Medicaid do so as a service to the community at a financial loss to their practice.
The inadequate reimbursement from Medicaid forces private clinics to limit the number of clients with Medicaid they see creating an inequity in healthcare services available to those in need.
Meet our Board
More about therapy and our community's needs
More about therapy and our community's needs
We have a small board of community volunteers committed to supporting the development, health and wellbeing of our community. Click here to learn more!
More about therapy and our community's needs
More about therapy and our community's needs
More about therapy and our community's needs
Whatcom county has a strong network of healthcare providers eager to help with challenges of all kinds, but we need help!
What is Medicaid?
More about therapy and our community's needs
What is Medicaid?
Health insurance can often feel like a total mystery. We are grateful for programs like Medicaid that allow more people access to health insurance; however, insurance that doesn't pay enough to cover a providers time is a problem.
News and Events
Community Providers Meeting October 6, 2022
Catalyst Community hosted therapists from community clinics to discuss issues related to reimbursement and service provision for underserved communities. Below are some of the highlights:
What challenges are created by Medicaid's very low reimbursement rate?
- All clinics represented are in agreement that the extremely low reimbursement paid by Medicaid plans is a significant barrier
- Client's with Medicaid often have higher no-show rates which forfeits a treatment time that could have been available to another client
- Client's with Medicaid often have fewer resources to fully participate in therapy for a variety of complex reasons: more difficulty with transportation, less flexibility for scheduling due to work schedules, less 1:1 time with children to follow through with therapy. Very low Medicaid reimbursement makes it so clinics do not have available funding to account for the loss of income caused by missed appointments or to provide any sort of complimentary care that would help these families (i.e. transportation assistance, childcare assistance for the children not in therapy, stipend funds for parents who have to miss work)
- Low reimbursement from insurance makes it difficult to afford to offer competitive wages to therapist. Fewer providers means longer wait times for clients.
-Some clinics must limit the number of Medicaid clients being seen at a time because each visit billed to Medicaid is lost income. This creates further inequity for folks with Medicaid trying to access care.
What would our local clinics/business owners do if there were not a gap in reimbursement from Medicaid?
- Hire more staff to see more patients
- Pay therapists better to help with retention and recruitment
- Build caseloads evenly so there aren't a disproportionate number of folks with Medicaid on waitlists
- See patient's longer
- Offer free/low cost programming outside of 1:1 therapy like social groups, parenting classes, support groups, homework help, etc.
- Hire administrative staff so therapists can focus on being the best therapists
- Offer more continuing education to staff
- Pay for access to more research journals so we can stay on the cutting edge
Other suggestions from participants
- Build a discussion board for providers to centralize expert knowledge about insurance billing, operations, and expand problem solving
- Community providers would like to meet quarterly to make sure that collectively Whatcom county is being taken care of as well as possible
-Centralize waitlists or build in better communication to optimize access to care
Thank you so much to the participants at this event:
Pediatric NDT and SI Therapy Services
Whatcom Center for Early Learning