Do you think you may be eligible for Project Access? Click here for patient information. Are you a physician who would like more
information about donating services? Click here for physician information.
Linn County Project Access provides a coordinated system for helping uninsured, low-income Linn County, Iowa residents get the health care they need in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.
Project Access is now recruiting primary care and specialty care physicians to provide free care to people eligible for the program.
How might the program help individuals? Project Access fills a need for people who do not have private health care insurance but don't qualify for government health care programs. Project Access doesn't duplicate existing federal, state or local program services, but instead improves local access to specialty care by complimenting and working in partnership with other health care initiatives.
The focus is on creating and/or maintaining a patient's relationship with a regular primary care physician who coordinates patient care and helps manage ongoing health concerns and chronic conditions. This is often referred to as a medical home.
Project Access clients receive free doctor visits, free lab and radiology services, low-cost medications and more.
A key goal for Project Access is to establish a specialty health care referral network in Linn County to ensure patients in need receive complete health care services to treat and manage health conditions.
Why might physicians participate? Project Access is a charity care network. That is, it's a network that matches doctors who want to provide free health care with qualified uninsured patients who can't pay. Many physicians are already donating health care services to patients who don't have insurance but don't qualify for government programs.
Through Project Access, doctors provide care either in their office or through a local health care provider partner. The doctors don't receive financial compensation from Project Access. However, Project Access will track donated health care and report information back to the community.
It's a tried-and-true national Project Access System of Care that began in North Carolina in 1996. The award-winning model has been copied and adapted to fit local needs and conditions in more than 50 locations. Linn County is home to Iowa's only Project Access program.
What's the benefit to the community? Studies have shown that in Project Access communities, costly Emergency Room visits decrease, which helps keep overall health care costs down; patients make fewer visits to community health care facilities, which increases the number of patients served; and doctors spend less time overcoming obstacles to providing free care for their patients, which means they may be more likely to provide free care to others. Project Access clients are more likely to regularly visit their primary care doctor and get connected to specialty care when they need it.
In short, Project Access improves health outcomes for low-income, uninsured patients.
