What services are offered?
Specific services that the center provides include:
- Primary healthcare services by physicians and allied health professionals
(i.e., nurse practitioner)
- Oral health services provided by a dentist and a dental hygienist
- Diagnostic laboratory services
- Diagnostic x-ray services
- Preventive health service
- Patient case management
- Pharmacy services
- Preventive and restorative dental services
- Translation services
Why do people lack access to healthcare?
- Individuals are working one or more part-time jobs with no available benefits.
- Self-employed workers often have no insurance coverage; many farmers and rural families fall into this category.
- Individuals are unemployed, unable to secure employment or have recently moved into the area.
- People fall between the cracks or lack knowledge of state-funded insurance programs such as Medicaid and hawk-i.
- People who are recently unemployed may not be able to pay the full premium to continue COBRA.
- Medicare health coverage for the elderly includes a medical but no dental benefit.
- Minority populations and others new to the community are not familiar with community resources.
- Many people are the “working poor” in that they are successfully employed full-time but in jobs with a low hourly rate
of pay. If the employer offers medical and dental insurance, low wages make the premiums unaffordable.
- Some employers may need to decrease the cost of providing health benefits by asking their workers to pay a higher
portion of the premium, making it more difficult for families to afford the coverage.
- Health plans that are available may have a high deductible and/or co-pay.
Who do we serve
- Many Dubuque-area residents do not access any healthcare services.
- Due to financial barriers families and individuals often use hospital emergency rooms for their primary care. Emergency rooms are not designed to
deliver preventive and ongoing treatment, making them an expensive and ineffective way to deliver non-emergency care.
- Currently Iowa has 733,000 on Medicare, Medicaid and
hawk-i, which is 25.2% of all Iowans. There are another
303,000 Iowans without health insurance, or 10.4% of all Iowans. These two numbers come to 35%.
- The target population includes the 22,249 residents of
Dubuque County who are below 200% of Federal Poverty
Income Index.
- Within the census tract comprising the medically underserved
area (MUA) in the city of Dubuque, over 75% of the
3,806 residents are estimated to earn below the 200% Federal Poverty Income Index.
- The median household income of this MUA is $19,733 compared to the national median income of $43,837.
- 8.2% of individuals in Dubuque County report no health insurance coverage.
- The non-white population in Dubuque County increased from 2.9% in 2002 to 3.5% in 2003.
- The elderly population (over 65 years) is 14.5% in Dubuque County.
- Almost 15% of the work force is employed in service occupations that rarely have affordable health insurance.
- 16.2% of Dubuque County’s employers do not offer health insurance benefits, affecting approximately 8,774 employees.
- 42.6% of Dubuque County’s employers do not offer dental insurance, affecting approximately 23,072 employees.