CHP Eyes Opening North Adams Health Center

Philip Morrison, left, chief financial officer for Community Health Programs, talks to Northern Berkshire Community Coalition Executive Director Al Bashevkin on Friday.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Another silver lining in the black cloud of health care in Northern Berkshire County emerged on Friday.

Philip Morrison, chief financial officer of Community Health Programs, said CHP is exploring the idea of opening a Federally Qualified Health Center in North Adams.

CHP, which has 22 doctors and 130 total employees, is headquartered in Great Barrington and has a facility in Pittsfield as well.

Morrison told a group of about 50 people gathered for the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition's monthly meeting that CHP had tried to start discussions with the former North Adams Regional Hospital five years ago about opening such a center but their advances had been rejected.

In light of the closure of the hospital, Morrisson said, CHP has started the discussion again, this time with Berkshire Health Systems, and is now "gathering feedback" about the possibilities.

According to CHP's website, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) is more commonly known as a Community Health Center (CHC) and is a primary care center that is community-based and patient-directed. By mission and design, CHCs exist to serve those who have limited access to health care although all are welcome. Unlike most private practices, CHCs welcome low-income individuals, the uninsured and underinsured, immigrants, migrant and seasonal farm workers, those who are homeless, and those who live in public housing.

FQHCs are locally based nonprofit organizations governed by a board of directors comprised of area volunteers. At FQHCs, payment is based on ability to pay.

Morrison said there were 1,100 FQHCs in the country, 51 in Massachusetts and only one in Berkshire County — CHP. Having this designation gives CHP some channels of federal funding as well as enhanced reimbursements for Medicare and Medicaid patients, an issue that has been cited as a factor in the closure of North Adams Regional Hospital.

Morrison said the idea behind the center is to provide primary care to residents so that a hospital is not providing that service.

"We can provide primary care more efficiently than the hospital," he said.

Morrison said the process to open a FHQC is a difficult one that has to travel through many bureaucratic channels, but he said he thought a North Adams center could open within a year.

That news was welcomed by Al Bashevkin, NBCC's executive director.

"It's great to hear it's likely," he said. "That's a sustainable model."

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