Daily Sentinel: Marillac Does Its Own Health Care Reform
By GARY HARMON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: Wednesday, September 09, 2009
With a disdain for bureaucracy and an approach that takes account of more than vital signs, Marillac Clinic operates in ways that the insurance industry and Medicare don’t readily recognize.
“We do things quite a bit differently as a provider of health care,” Marillac Executive Director Steve Hurd said Wednesday, several hours before President Barack Obama made a pitch to Congress for his national health care reform plan.
How Marillac Clinic would fare in a reformed health care system is anything but clear, say physicians and others who work in the system locally.
Marillac provides services for uninsured and under-insured patients on a sliding scale based on income, but medical care is only the beginning of the services that the clinic provides, Hurd said.
The term “medical home” has been coined to describe Marillac and similar providers.
