Frederiksted Health Care is seeing more patients every year, partly due to more people needing its services due to the economy and Hovensa’s closure, and partly due to increased funding through federal health care reform, its management said during budget hearings Thursday. To help meet the demand, the clinic is expanding into a second location, this one in Christiansted, according to Executive Director Masserae Sprauve Webster.
Frederiksted Health Care, the nonprofit that operates the Frederiksted Health Clinic and a school-based health clinic at St. Croix Educational Complex, was before the Senate Finance Committee to discuss its Fiscal Year 2014 General Fund budget request of $2.2 million.
The clinic saw 9,250 patients in FY07 and numbers rose every year through 2010, when it saw 14,744. There was a small drop in 2011, to 13,762, which Webster attributed to several months of reduced visits to accommodate training and setting up the clinic’s new electronic medical record system, and to the clinic closing for two weeks to move from the Herbert Grigg Home for the Aged back to the Ingeborg Nesbitt Clinic in Frederiksted.
In 2012, the clinic saw 17,995 patients – a nearly 40 percent increase in one year.
Several factors contributed to the increase, Webster said, including more Frederiksted patients coming after the move; new patients who came to the clinic when it was mid-island staying with the clinic after the move; and to a larger uninsured population, due to Hovensa’s closure and the poor economy.
The quality of service at the clinic is attracting more insured patients too, she said. The clinic has "grown from 3 percent of our patients having private insurance to 18 percent," Webster said.
But with patients coming to the clinic from all over the island, "appointments cannot be secured for two months out," and more than half of patients are coming from mid-island and Christiansted, she said.
With a loan guarantee from the V.I. Economic Development Authority, FHC secured a mortgage with a local bank to buy a satellite site in Christiansted. "FHC is presently making minor renovations to the property and looks forward to opening in the coming months," she said.
The governor’s recommended General Fund appropriation from the miscellaneous section of the budget for the clinic for FY14 is $1.99 million but FHC is requesting $2.2 million, or $239,000 more than the recommendation. Webster said the additional funds would allow them to hire more staff and expand its office space.
Along with the local appropriation, FHC expects $1.6 million in federal funding and $1.9 million in program funding from its own fees for services, for a total projected FY14 budget of $5.7 million.
Wages and salaries consume $3.1 million of that, while employer contributions for Social Security Medicare and benefits total $898,000. "Other services and charges" consumes $1 million. Supplies take up another $358,000. Utilities are budgeted at $330,000.
No votes were taken during the information gathering budget hearing.
