Task force eyes hospital changes

Wednesday, March 19, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.

A Clark County citizens task force considering changes in the public hospital system met Tuesday and recommended funneling most uninsured patients through a few county Quick Care Centers and federal clinics.

The county would have trained personnel at the sites who could help the patients apply for federal or state aid -- a move that would ease the University Medical Center's chronic fiscal ailment, county staff members hope.

The recommendation got the qualified support of both the union representing the staff at the medical system and a community coalition, Las Vegans for Affordable Health Care. Both Ben Contine, with the community coalition, and Maryanne Salm, political director with the Service Employees International Union Local 1107, said the basic idea is sound: The county needs to do whatever can be done to bring in more money for treating the increasing numbers of uninsured and often indigent patients that it treats.

However, both also said an adequate number of clinics, geographically distributed across the urban area, need to be ready to accept the uninsured patients.

The suggestion, which the Clark County Commission would have to enact, is part of a larger plan to more aggressively collect payment information from non-emergency patients.

The list of those Quick Cares and other clinics that would take the uninsured patients, or at least those without medical emergencies, is still up in the air. The task force will consider those options later.

The task force members representing industry, labor and academic sectors were appointed by the county in response to financial troubles rocking the system. The county commission in December provided $38 million to keep the system afloat and earlier this year announced it would reduce hours at the McCarran Quick Care on Russell Road and lay off three dozen system employees, some of them doctors and nurses who work for the Quick Cares.

The task force and a half-dozen associated focus groups are expected to meet over the next six months on the issue.