According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 1 in 12 Americans, which adds up to 24.3 million people, sought care at federally qualified health centers, similar to Crossroad Health Center, in 2015. Nearly 6 in 10 of these patients were women, and hundreds of thousands of veterans sought care as well. Crossroad Health Center alone serves a population of 11,000 people, most of whom live at or below the poverty line and are racial or ethnic minorities. These numbers are powerful and convey the important role that Crossroad plays in serving Cincinnati residents, but stories are arguably even more powerful. What I have received from being a VIP at Crossroad is stories, and for that I am truly grateful.
Being a VIP means that you give just as much as you receive. Volunteering at Crossroad has been one of the only volunteer experiences I’ve had that has ignited me, where I want to stay six hours, not four, to finish scheduling referrals and overcoming insurance barriers. However, I also want to stay to take in as much as possible. I’ve learned so much from providers, staff, and patients that I would have never learned otherwise. Many of these often frustrating stories that I’ve collected are associated with insurance barriers. Even though the Affordable Care Act has helped to increase the number of patients with health insurance at FQHCs, one in four health center patients remain uninsured. An issue that’s also been presented to me as a VIP is the problem of underinsurance, where patients nominally have insurance, but their deductibles are so high that their insurance is mostly catastrophic—it can only kick in if they get into a car accident or need emergency surgery.
However, the most frustrating insurance barrier that I’ve experienced concerns dental insurance. Many insurance plans do not provide dental insurance at all, as if dental care was any less important than general health care. I would argue, in fact, that dental insurance is even more important than health care in cases of seeking employment. Your teeth are the first thing someone sees when they look at your face, and having poor dental health is one of the greatest barriers to employment, along with obesity, for people of low socioeconomic status. One of the patients for whom I needed to schedule a referral needed to see an oral surgeon for their health needs. However, with no dental insurance and little to no income, the patient would not have his procedure covered nor could he pay for it himself. I called every single oral surgeon in Cincinnati, and none of them would provide care at a reduced cost or even provide care to Medicaid patients in the first place. The patient would have to travel to UC Medical Center to fill out financial aid paperwork, but having no car, this was also difficult. As the patient’s designated VIP, I felt responsible for ultimately being unable to get them the care they needed. From my experience, I learned just how important insurance and reduced cost care is to millions of Americans. From my experience with this patient and at Crossroad, I recently contacted Senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown to encourage them to vote against the American Health Care Act, as this would reverse many of the gains that the Affordable Care Act put in place in terms of insurance access and utility.
To VIPs starting your first rotation, to people contemplating applying to volunteer at Crossroad, and to people who haven’t even heard of Crossroad Health Center: I highly encourage you to apply to become a VIP. Being able to immerse myself in an environment of giving has been an igniting blessing to my college and life experiences. I hope that other people can find the same drive in them to give and learn from others as I have.
-- Emily Kim
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