Federal grant helps expand COVID-19 testing for low-income Whatcom County residents
Unity Care NW has received a $420,019 federal grant to expand COVID-19 testing for Whatcom County residents and how the community health center plans to use it reveals the new normal for providers and their patients.
The grant is part of $20.7 million distributed to 27 community health centers in Washington state through the federal Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, according to a recent news release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Chris Kobdish, director of planning and development for Unity Care NW, said the organization was grateful for the money, which can be used to test patients, pay for staff related to testing, and help find others who came into contact with those who test positive for the new coronavirus, in coordination with state and county efforts.
“It is important that we work together as a community to provide access to testing as widely as possible to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to give community members confidence as our state opens more widely,” Kobdish said in an email to The Bellingham Herald.
Unity Care NW provides dental, behavioral health and pharmacy services, along with primary care on a sliding-fee scale — to give services regardless of someone’s ability to pay. It has clinics in Bellingham and Ferndale.
More testing
Unity Care will use the money to tap into increased testing capacity in Whatcom County, led by Northwest Laboratory in Bellingham. It will gather samples from patients and send them to the lab, which has the supplies and the ability to run 10,000 tests a day.
As of May 2, Northwest Laboratory said it has performed just under 5,000 COVID-19 tests in total for Whatcom County residents.
Kobdish said the funding was “vitally important” to the Unity Care and its patients. One way it could be used is to screen dental patients who don’t have symptoms prior to “aerosolizing” procedures such as teeth cleanings and fillings.
“As we are able to open more in-person services to patients, including the reopening of non-emergency dental services, adequate testing is imperative to keep both patients and staff safe,” she explained. “Many dental procedures are aerosolizing — procedures that convert into a fine spray or colloidal suspension in air — which puts providers and other patients at risk for contracting COVID-19. Our goal is to test every patient requiring aerosolizing procedures.”
Kobdish said Unity Care just received the money so it hasn’t finalized its plans.
COVID-19 testing is covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance, Kobdish said. Patients who have no insurance can get tested at no charge and there’s a reimbursement process for the provider.
But Kobdish said that only covers the test itself, including for lab processing.
It doesn’t cover the costs for providers to conduct the tests or screen patients because of the new coronavirus, which has required Unity Care to create new setups and move staff into new roles.
Those include structures where patients and staff are tested and screened outside before entering a clinic, staff walking patients through new processes before they arrive, and curbside pharmacy services. None have been reimbursable or funded, Kobdish explained.
“These new systems require over 20 staff, and are not sustainable without funding,” she said.
As Unity Care and patients return to more on-site services, the staff that has been moved into those roles will be moved back to their usual jobs.
So the federal grant could be used to help Unity Care and other community health centers staff these new systems, ramp up new contact tracing efforts and help clinics with the costs of designating testing areas to keep potentially infected patients from healthy patients, Kobdish added.
And while COVID-19 tests for the uninsured can be reimbursed, it’s not clear how long that will remain available, how much money is available and whether all tests submitted will be approved for reimbursement, she said.
This story was originally published May 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
