New York City Official Proposes Spending $26M To Expand Health Care Services in Underserved Areas
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on Monday announced a proposal to spend $26 million through 2012 to expand the city's health care services in 11 high-poverty and underserved areas, the New York Times reports. Quinn said the City Council will conduct public forums over the next few weeks in each borough to hear concerns about health care before the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issues a request in December for proposals to expand the city's health care services.
Requests would be judged by primary care providers' ability to expand capacity, as well as the providers' responsiveness to patient complaints identified in a survey released on Monday. The survey of primary care in the city, which also identified the underserved areas, involved 3,000 patients. According to the study, 43% of the patients said the wait to see a primary care provider was too long; 31% said that physician offices did not keep to appointment times; 24% said that physicians and nurses did not spend adequate time with them; 20% said that physicians did not listen properly to them; and 20% thought the cost of health care was too high.
Quinn said that hospital beds in the city are underused and preventive medicine is lacking in many areas, particularly those that are low-income or that serve immigrants who do not speak English. She said, "I think we all know that too much money gets spent on expensive inpatient care," adding, "Too many New Yorkers have the emergency room as their primary doctors." Quinn said there is no guarantee for the proposal, but the goal is to provide $17 million in capital financing and $9.2 million in expense money for the primary care proposal through 2012. About $7 million already has been allocated for fiscal year 2009, which ends in June (Hartocollis, New York Times, 9/23).
