Spotlight

KCPA's History and Mission

In 2002, a group of Safety Net providers were convened by King County Health Access Program to discuss potential solutions to the challenge of accessing specialty services for its patients. Discussions focused around developing an effort that leveraged on the local ability of Washington Health Foundation (WHF) to assist uninsured King County residents’ access to state-sponsored health insurance and link these same residents to primary care. Local leaders wondered if a similar effort could provide access to specialty services.

For two years, discussions led to multiple attempts to engage local providers and agencies; various models were researched and explored. Through this work, it was determined that a Project Access-type program, if focused on specialty services, had the potential of addressing this problem for King County.

In November 2004, King County local partners began meeting twice monthly with the intent of determining if such an effort would be viable in King County and how to develop such a program. Local partners included: Community Health Council of King County, PacMed, Harborview, King County Medical Society, Pacific Hospital PDA, Public Health – Seattle and King County, Swedish–Providence Campus, and the Washington Health Foundation.

These organizations committed time and staff resources to two successful pilot programs. During the summer of 2005, these same local partners determined that the effort had the most chance of success if it became closely affiliated with King County Medical Society.

As outlined in KCPA’s Bylaws, its organizational purposes are:

• To facilitate, through licensed health care professionals and institutions, on a volunteer basis, the providing of medical services to low-income, uninsured individuals and other individuals experiencing challenges with accessing health care services in the community; and,
• To develop collaborative partnerships with other key stakeholders in King County with the goal of improving access to essential health services for the uninsured and underinsured; and,
• To promote fair and appropriate access to health care and related services, particularly those who are uninsured or underinsured.

In March of 2006, Evergreen Medical Center committed to KCPA, with four key physicians agreeing to leadership roles that include recruiting their colleagues and the requisite ancillary services.

Group Health Cooperative committed to participating clinically in KCPA and anticipates implementing for three to four specialty groups in October/November 2006.

First Choice Health, through the support of Dr. Mitch Weinberg, volunteered to provide the billing system necessary to documenting the value of donated services by physicians, ancillary services and Evergreen Healthcare for KCPA’s first year of service.