Paula S. Gomez

BROWNSVILLE, Aug. 11 - “Saving money and saving lives,” we hear this all the time and it cuts across all party lines. The more positive statement is “Healthier Texans and healthier communities.”

No matter where we stand on the politics of health care, these are outcomes we can all support. They’re outcomes that are being achieved every day — and will continue to be achieved as the nation implements the new Affordable Care Act — thanks to the Texas network of community health centers.

As we celebrate National Health Center Week, it’s a good time to take stock of how health centers like our own the Brownsville Community Health Center (BCHC) will play a critical role in reshaping America’s health care system.

Community health centers provide access to all kinds of primary care, including health care for all members of the family, counseling and behavioral health services, dental services, lab and x-ray services and pharmacy as well. In most Texas community health centers those services are provided under one roof, giving patients a health care home where they can be seen by familiar providers for all their health care needs.

The quality of care provided in Texas health centers is just as high as one would find anywhere in the larger health care systems— one reason why patients with private insurance, or with coverage from programs like Medicare, often make health centers their medical home.

Access to consistent high-quality primary care not only saves money but keeps people healthier and out of the hospital. In fact, Medicaid patients at Texas’ health centers are less likely to require hospitalization.

BCHC and other health centers deliver care that meets the needs of tens of thousands of Texas families, and doing so for less money and with better results. Recent research shows that Texas Medicaid patients who are receiving their care at community health centers cost the program — and thus the taxpayer — $631 less per month compared to patients being seen by hospital emergency rooms and outpatient departments.

In short, community health centers deliver results. That’s why local, state and federal agencies continue to work together to invest in Texas’ health centers network to build and expand facilities, add providers, improve technology and streamline access. These enhancements will continue to make centers like BCHC an attractive healthcare option for patients regardless of their insurance status.

It’s important to continue to invest in health centers as we expand Americans’ access to care by implementing the Affordable Care Act. One might think that the federal health care reform law, with its provisions for covering America’s millions of uninsured, would reduce or eliminate the need for “safety net” providers like community health centers.

In fact, the opposite is true. Centers like BCHC are positioned to meet the medical needs of the millions of people currently lacking access to quality, cost-effective and comprehensive primary care. As we transition into full implementation of the Affordable Care Act by 2014, it’s important that we start bringing people into the primary care system and providing them with health care homes where their conditions can be managed and their health outcomes improved. That’s the job the community health center model was designed to do.

It’s also important to remember that many of Texas’ health centers, including BCHC are providing essential care to patients in communities that suffer from a chronic shortage of physicians and other health care providers. As important as it is to provide more people with insurance, it’s even more important to ensure we have providers to treat these patients in medically underserved areas. Right now and for the foreseeable future, those providers are most likely going to be working in and with community health centers.

Two years ago, the Texas Legislature passed a measure that is expected to bring nearly 1,000 new physicians to underserved areas over the next four years. The state’s community health centers led the way in advocating for this program — just one of the ways in which health centers help all Texans, no matter where they live or how they pay, live healthier lives in healthier communities at a price we can all afford.

Paula S. Gomez is executive director of the Brownsville Community Health Center.

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