Thank you for the story the Gazette recently ran on the state of primary care doctors in Franklin County (“Rural primary care a challenge locally,” Sept. 3).
Hampshire County, particularly the rural Hilltowns, also faces a critical lack of primary care, and Hilltown Community Health Center faces equally high barriers to hiring primary care doctors for our sites in Worthington and Huntington.
The shortage has profound implications for our patients and our communities — without sufficient staffing, we cannot provide our patients with the accessible continuity of care that we all desire and deserve, and must prioritize services and sites to ensure that we are serving those most in need.
Health centers often cannot compete with private practices in salary, as we serve a population that is more likely to be publicly insured, or not insured at all. While we receive federal and state funding to cover some of the costs of the increasing number of patients who cannot afford their deductibles and co-pays, these costs eat into our ability to pay providers competitively.
We strongly believe in the new model of health care in which mission-driven doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, medical assistants and all other staff work together to care for our patients. The current medical system is no longer one in which the doctor carries all the work, but instead doctors are part of a team, dedicated to comprehensive care management.
In particular, we know that nurse practitioners’ role on the team is essential. Numerous studies have shown that NPs are the future of primary care, particularly in rural areas, and can help fill this gap by providing high quality and essential care.
As a health center that serves everyone, regardless of ability to pay, HCHC provides integrated medical, dental, behavioral health and eye care services. But we will not be able to continue to do so if the state and federal governments do not step up and address this dire provider shortage. Our legislative delegation is working hard, but we would ask that everyone understand the challenges, and support your local primary care offices like HCHC as we work to meet the needs of our community.
Eliza Lake
The writer is CEO of Hilltown Community Health Center, 58 Old North Road, in Worthington.