A spokeswoman for the health department said a $5 fee would help close a budget gap. The county commission's approval is needed.
By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published January 13, 2004
Low-income residents with no health insurance soon could face a $5 fee for visits to primary care physicians at the Citrus County Health Department.
The fee is the health department's answer to maintaining service as the cost of providing primary care services and the local demand for them rises, said spokeswoman Judi Tear.
Health officials plan to implement the new fee Feb. 1 if the Citrus County Commission approves it later this month.
"Medical costs have gone up," Tear said Monday. "Administrators and staff do not want to sacrifice quality health care."
The proposal before the commission also includes a $5 to $10 fee for primary care prescriptions from the county's pharmacy. As part of the plan, a patient would be charged $5 each for up to two prescriptions a month.
A person taking more than two prescriptions would only be charged a maximum $10 fee, Tear said.
The fee resolution was not scheduled to come before the commission today. Health officials expect it to appear on the Jan. 27 agenda.
Tear said only a limited number of the department's patrons will be affected by the proposed fee. The fee will not be levied against Medicaid or Medicare recipients; the health department already is reimbursed for those patients.
Also, people will not be charged the new fee for the following services: communicable disease diagnosis and treatment, family planning, HIV/AIDS clinic, sexually transmitted diseases, Healthy Start, childhood immunizations, Healthy Kids, and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program.
Citrus health officials opted to seek the fee for primary care services to cope with several budget shortfalls the department will face this year, Tear said.
The county's health department budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 is $5.9-million. But cuts to the Family Planning Medicaid program will leave the county health department short $78,000, and the elimination of a $3 co-pay for the Healthy Kids program means another $3,500 gone, Tear said.
The health department also runs a program that issues permits for modifications and repairs to septic tanks, but state-regulated fees currently are not covering the cost of the program, Tear said.
Budget constraints aside, she added that the health department also has coped with the increasing burden of more and more uninsured residents.
"At this point, they have not paid anything (for services)," Tear said.
Health department officials anticipate setting the $5 fee will help reduce the number of unnecessary visits and missed appointments. However, patients will not be charged the fee if they miss a scheduled appointment, Tear said.
Last year, the health department handled 15,326 visits for adults and 13,824 visits for children, Tear said. She was unable to break down the numbers to show how many of these visits were made by uninsured clients.
But in some cases, those seeking services had to be turned away because of limited appointments with available staff. Health officials hope having uninsured clients contribute a little more to their health care will send the message that each appointment is important, Tear said.
"It is a very minimal fee for a service they are getting," Tear said. "It helps us better provide quality services to more people."
