Community Members

For over 25 years, Maine Primary Care Association has worked to strengthen and sustain Maine’s Primary Care Safety Net. Our Federally Qualified Health Centers and Indian Health Centers provide high quality primary care to underserved areas and underserved populations of the state where healthcare options are limited and where barriers to access would otherwise prevent the delivery of the right care at the right time in the right place. Despite rising costs in the delivery of healthcare, these health centers, with support from Maine Primary Care Association, continue to find ways to increase their services and their capacity to respond to the growing needs of the communities they serve.

As you utilize this website, consider that:

1) 1) Maine’s community health centers (CHCs) open their doors to everyone, and reduce financial barriers through sliding fee scales, and geographical barriers, often through transportation arrangements.

2) CHCs are true community organizations which are governed by a majority of health center patients and are responsive to the needs of the communities they serve by providing the truest sense of a medical home. Maine’s CHCs have increased access to dental care for the uninsured by over 450%, increased access to mental health services by providing these services directly onsite, and have included an array of programs and services to better assist patients and their communities.

3) CHCs lead innovation in health care. CHCs in Maine were the first in the state to adopt and apply the Planned Care Model. Now, all of Maine’s Community Health Centers are on track to have incorporated this patient-centered approach to high quality care within their practices by 2008. In addition, by the end of 2007, 70 percent of CHCs will have instituted an electronic medical record within the primary care medical home, a wise use of available technology that increases clinician access to information, and reduces the opportunity for error by making patient information, lab results and medication history more accessible at the point and time of care.

4) Lastly, CHCs provide a significant cost savings to our healthcare system. Maine health centers account for less than 1 percent of statewide health care spending, and yet provide access to care for 15 percent of the state’s populace, a number that has more than doubled in five years even while the percentage of total health care spending has remained constant. Moreover, for every dollar invested in Maine CHCs, there are $3.05 in savings to MaineCare, and similar savings accrue to other payers as well, mostly through the avoidance of more expensive downstream costs. For instance, CHCs have been shown to reduce what should be avoidable hospitalizations by 22 percent.