Wahiawa Health
The community of Wahiawa on the Island of Oahu applied for a HRSA planning grant in the summer of 2011. One year later, Wahiawa Health (WH) was born, with a board, a corporation and bylaws. It was not until January 1, 2017 that Wahiawa Health finally opened its doors after years of work with the bureaucracy of becoming a group practice. Wahiawa Health absorbed 3 retiring doctors, their patients and their staff. In the summer of 2017 WH applied for the last NAP posting. WH also filed an application to become a Look Alike should it not be awarded the NAP.
In December, 2017 WH was notified that it did not receive the NAP grant. However, it did get awarded the Look Alike status effective January 1, 2018. The journey was started but the financial challenges started and still continue today as WH works to provide access to care to a growing number of patients quickly approaching 6,000 patients.
As a Look Alike, WH has received its PPS designation after months of negotiations with the State of Hawaii. We still survive on FFS payments and wait for quarterly wraparound payments from the State of Hawaii. WH lives from payroll to payroll with the constant challenges of late or denied payments from MCOs and manages its business affairs around the quarterly wrap payments from the State. It is a very fine balancing act of survival but with the hopes that one day we will receive a NAP award which will also give us access to apply for the numerous other federal grants only available to 330 Grantees. I am sure that our fellow LAL peers are also waiting for that day when we are recognized as a needed entity in our communities.
We have lost money every month since starting to deliver services in 2018. We constantly are writing grants, begging for funding and running a very tight ship. But in January and February of 2020, we turned the corner and had the best months ever and it appeared financial stability was in front of us in our 4th year of business. And now the Covid pandemic is upon us.
All is not gloom and doom. We have provided 45 new jobs and millions into the economy of a depressed community. We can now see that a once disjointed depressed community with only the ER of a small rural hospital has the benefit of care from a LAL in coordination with the hospital. We also now have numerous new social services community organizations start up and are working together as one for the benefit of a long-ignored community.
It is hard to believe that an island like Oahu would have a rural area so ignored and with health needs that surpass other areas in the State of Hawaii. There are 15 FQHC locations in Hawaii and we are the only LAL. Our LAL status is begging to be acknowledged as a valuable part of the FQHC network. I feel these years of hard work for the benefit of our catchment of 120,000 individuals is worthy of my time of advocating for equity for the community health center that is a Look Alike. I want to be a part of a movement of equality of funding and equality to our people who will have a FQHC that can deliver them the fully funded capacity of a funded Look Alike, Our leaders at HRSA need to see that the 100+ of us as a voice of millions of citizens that deserve access to more fully funded services in our Look Alike entities.
As we say in Hawaii, IMUA...to move forward with strength!
Bev Harbin, Chief Executive Officer
