Access DuPage (AD) currently provides main care for about 14 0

Access DuPage (AD) currently provides main care for about 14 0 low income uninsured occupants of suburban DuPage Region IL an area with a very limited healthcare safety net infrastructure. enrollees (n=135) were asked the same questions about the previous year when actively enrolled in AD. Founded enrollees reported becoming more likely to get ‘any kind of checks or treatment’ (96.3% versus 46.2% p<0.0001) fewer cost (78.5% versus 21.3% p<0.0001) and transportation barriers to care more preventive and mental health solutions and better self-management care. However founded enrollees also reported 14% higher use of hospital inpatient and 9% higher use of emergency room care as well as continued difficulty in accessing needed specialty and dental care services. Despite more (diagnosed) conditions founded enrollees were over 2.5 times more likely to report good to excellent health status and over three times more likely to rate their satisfaction with health care as good to excellent. Findings illustrate the considerable benefits of assuring access to care for the uninsured but Ki16425 do not reflect immediate savings from reduced hospital utilization. Access to care programs will be an important tool to address the needs of the 30 million people who will continue to be Ki16425 uninsured in the United States. Keywords: Access to care Safety net Uninsured Health care reform Intro DuPage County a large suburban ‘collar region’ of Chicago with just under one million occupants is definitely confronting the national tendency towards ‘suburbanization of poverty’ [1]. There has been a dramatic increase in the DuPage human population living under the federal poverty level (FPL) having a 182% increase between 2000 and 2009. DuPage is definitely rapidly becoming more diverse having a 239% increase in the Latino human population from 1990-2009 [2]. According to Round 4 (2007-2010) Illinois county-level BRFSS data 6.7% of DuPage adults age 18-64 were uninsured having a much larger proportion being uninsured at some point in the previous year [3]. The primary ‘port of access’ of low income immigrants Ki16425 in Illinois is no longer Chicago appropriate but the suburban collar counties. There were over 170 0 foreign born DuPage occupants in 2009 2009 from a total estimated human population of 921 0 This includes over 75 0 non-citizens amongst whom an estimated 30 0 were uninsured [3]. The safety net in many ‘collar’ counties of large metropolitan areas is being stretched from the economic downturn and its associated job and housing deficits. Safety net systems in many suburban counties are Ki16425 coping with a rapid influx of low income uninsured often non-English speaking individuals in a weather of distributing foreclosures increasing homelessness and the migration of poor inner city occupants with often complex health care needs [4 5 While many urban areas possess long established general public health care organizations and providers the health care safety net of DuPage like many other suburban and exurban areas has had little publically funded infrastructure. The DuPage Health Coalition composed of health supplier civic and community companies and its Access DuPage System (AD) has wanted to provide main care homes for low income uninsured occupants. AD serves uninsured adult occupants of DuPage with a household income below 200% of Federal government Poverty Level. In 2012 AD assigned approximately 14 0 enrollees to main care doctors at four Federally Certified Health Centers (FQHCs) over 100 private physicians or the DuPage Community Medical center the only free medical center in DuPage staffed primarily by volunteer physicians. Uninsured individuals can begin the process of enrolling in the program at 45 sites across the region [6]. As part of on-going community centered participatory study (CBPR) activities AD and Northwestern University or college LCA5 antibody researchers carried out a two wave bilingual telephone interview survey of AD enrollees from over two dozen DuPage municipalities. The primary purpose of the survey was to provide evidence concerning the extent to which AD increased access to care and attention and improved health status for enrollees while at the same time providing data concerning the continuing challenges facing founded enrollees. Results are highly relevant Ki16425 to current debates over implementation of Ki16425 the Affordable Care Take action and in particular the value of access to care programs for the many millions who will remain.