Health department learning ways to accept private insurance

Sept. 25--Officials with the Ector County Health Department are learning ways to accept private insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, but commissioners are hesitant to hire new employees to handle the workload or compete with local doctors.

Healthcare reform incentivizes hospitals and clinics to accept more patients with Medicare, Medicaid and no insurance at all reducing the cost for taxpayers and hospitals and as a means of making health services more accessible, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In June, Gino Solla, director of the Ector County Health Department, sought approval from the commissioners on exploring possible avenues of accepting private insurance.

The health department primarily covers patients with Medicare, Medicaid, or those who are uninsured by providing cost efficient care through state and federal grant funding. With the ACA in place more people are becoming insured leading to a decrease in patient load for the health department, Solla said. This prompted Solla to explore the idea of accepting those private insurance policies.

Commissioners approved his request and Solla began researching how the department could make it happen. Staff at the health department are now in training and are researching the possibilities, Solla said.

"We are at a spot now where we have administrative staff enrolled in a revenue-generating collaborative," Solla said. "What that entails is they will train us on how to bill private insurance and increase revenue."

Before the reform went into place, the health department covered most of those patients locally by providing cost-efficient care through state and federal grant funding. However, Solla said it has forced the entity to reassess their future role in community health.

Solla said the process would take a massive amount of research and it would be a long process.

In order for the plan to work Solla said the health department would have to get accredited by insurance companies, they would have to be accepted as a network, and they would have to learn to write International Disease Codes for every treatment.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Dale Childers said his hesitation with the plan was if the health department would be competing with local doctors by adding new services.

"My biggest concern is I do not want to add new services that are already being provided and compete with doctors and clinics," Childers said. "The first thing Gino told us was that they will not compete with doctors so hopefully that doesn't come up (in the process)."

Precinct 2 Commissioner Greg Simmons said he has not heard and update on the program from Solla, but had concerns over adding additional staff members and offsetting that cost.

"The intent was to keep patients coming to the health department even if they had insurance but at the same time we did not want to increase the staff," Simmons said. "I don't want to get bogged down with more people processing insurance than having people seeing patients. We will just have to see what he comes up with and if he can offset the cost of an insurance clerk or something like that we would look at that, but I don't think it would happen immediately because we aren't looking to create or add any positions."

Childers and Precinct 1 Commissioner Armando Rodriguez said they would likely not vote for additional staff for the initiative but would be open to it if the health department could find a way to offset the cost, as mentioned by Simmons.

Even if the initiative is not approved in the future, Childers went on to say that the health department's number of patients is increasing thus the department wouldn't be in any danger.

Solla called the research "a work in progress that is new to us (the department)" and they are exploring all available options.

"When you embark on something like that you have to look at everything," Solla said. "You cannot put the cart before the horse."

Contact Jared Wilson at 432-333-7786

___

(c)2015 the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas)

Visit the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas) at www.oaoa.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.