| 01/20/2005 |
| SAGA providers lacking |
| By PENNY RIORDAN , Staff Writer |
|
NEW BRITAIN -- The way some clients
put it, it was almost as if their medical benefits under
Connecticut’s SAGA program disappeared overnight. Andre
Leathers, a resident of the Friendship Service Center and a SAGA
(State Administered General Assistance) client, was having trouble
with his wisdom teeth roughly six months ago. His once reliable
health benefits seemed to dry up when he tried to see an
orthodontist for his aching tooth.Health-care advocates gathered to educate the city’s delegation to the General Assembly that the new and improved SAGA program was not working due to a smaller network of providers and the same patient load as before. In the late 1990s, the general assistance health-care program was administered through the city welfare office, serving as the health care safety net for New Britain’s poorest residents. In 1998 the state government took over the program in a round of cuts that left patients without critical services, representatives from New Britain Partners in Health said. In the fall of 2004, SAGA was converted to a managed-care system, and many health-care providers opted out of participating, leaving an imbalance between patient load and health-care providers. "For this to happen to me at a time when I really needed medical care, this was unnerving," Leathers said. Coincidentally, Wednesday was the day he finally had an appointment to get his teeth examined, except the appointment was not in New Britain. Leathers had to ask the nurse at the center, Jeanette Gross, to drive him to Hartford. Gross, who has 22 patients affiliated with the center on SAGA, said the problem is really with the lack of specialists signed up to participate in the program. Partners in Health representatives displayed maps indicating that SAGA patients, who are given a monthly income of $477, have to drive 10 miles to Farmington to find a participating SAGA neurologist. With the lack of providers, SAGA patients also wait until they are at a crisis point, and then make a trip to the emergency room. At New Britain General Hospital, CEO Larry Tanner said roughly 3,000 to 5,000 more patients have visited the emergency room in the past year. The primary-care physicians associated with the hospital also saw a significant jump in their patient load. Before changes to the program were made in the fall of 2004, the hospital had 800 SAGA patients. Suddenly, that number jumped to 2,000 patients, he said. Partners in Health, a coalition of health-care providers and community leaders, serves as a representative for the 20,000 poor, uninsured and underinsured city residents. Their pleas were easily understood by New Britain representatives, who had stood up against the cuts in the past. Legislators plan to introduce a bill this year to restore funding to the program, said state Rep. John Geragosian, D-25th District. "In the past the government has decided to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and that’s wrong," Geragosian said. Penny Riordan can be reached at priordan@newbritainherald.com, or by calling (860) 225-4601, ext. 221 |