Drew Wilson
A new report from the Florida Association of Free and Charitable Clinics shows their members provided nearly $179 million in health care services last year.
The FAFCC report breakdown lists $69.1 million worth of health care visits, $37.7 million in prescriptions filled and $27.9 million in imaging services provided.
The values don’t necessarily represent money that changed hands.
For visits, FAFCC uses the reimbursement rate for the closest Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) to each of their 94 member clinics.
For imaging and prescriptions, member clinics could either report the data they collected or use a standard rate derived from the 2018 Medicare rates for various imaging studies conducted by the American College of Radiology.
Also listed in the report: $34.6 million in specialty care, $8.6 million in lab work and about $675,000 in durable medical equipment.
The report covers July 1, 2018 through June 30 of last year. That lines up with the state government’s 2018-19 fiscal year, when FAFCC received a $9.5 million appropriation from lawmakers.
That money, the association said, went a long way to helping clinics throughout the state deliver care.
“We are extraordinarily proud of the work — much of it volunteer — that our clinics do to provide healthcare services to uninsured and underinsured Floridians,” said Rev. Michael Daily, Board Chair for FAFCC and CEO at Good News Care Center free clinic in Homestead.
“We are also grateful to lawmakers for continuing to seed our clinics in the budget — the return on investment in dollars is incredible and the return in quality of life for Floridians is incalculable.”
