The following Health Check 10 news story is by BARBARA MORSE and was published May 12, 2025. The original story is published here.
With proposed cuts to Medicaid and low reimbursement rates, community health centers are feeling the pinch.
Recently, Providence Community Health Centers announced more than 70 layoffs. Now, others are worried.
Alison Croke, the president and CEO of Wood River Health, spoke with NBC 10's Barbara Morse. (WJAR)
"There is no fat. There's nothing to trim," said Alison Croke, the president and CEO of Wood River Health, which has two locations. One is in Hope Valley, the other in Westerly.
"We serve the area of Charlestown, Richmond, Hopkinton, Westerly, Exeter-West Greenwich and also a couple of towns over the border in Connecticut," said Croke.
"Last year we served about 10,500 unique patients. That represents about 30,000 primary care visits, about 7,000 dental visits, about 5,000 behavioral health visits."
Between the eight community health centers in Rhode Island, more than 200,000 patients are served.
What makes these health centers unique is this:
"We are governed by a board that is at least 51% patients of the health center," she said.
That's to help ensure the needs of the community are met.
At Wood River Health, that includes providing things like transportation to and from medical visits for a patient population where forty percent are reliant on Medicaid.
And with the announced closure of Anchor Medical, thousands more patients are looking for primary care homes.
We are losing doctors and services right and left in this state.
"We are," said Croke. "It really can be described as a crisis."
"There's really nothing we can't take care of here," said Dr. Jonathan Gates, one of the primary care physicians at Wood River Health. This model includes a pharmacy, behavioral health, dental and physical therapy, making it convenient for patients.
"We focus on preventing disease. We do a lot of screening to make sure we pick up things early," said Gates.
That's now.
Dr. Jonathan Gates, one of the primary care physicians at Wood River Health. (WJAR)
No rate increases, more funding cuts and a lack of primary care homes for so many could, he says, could be catastrophic.
"In population health in which I've done a lot of work in, what we find is without insurance you wind up going to the ER more, and the ER costs a lot more," said Gates.
Croke says due to low reimbursement rates from Medicaid, they lose $100 per patient visit. As a result, job openings are frozen and they may have to cut programs, such as the one that provides transportation.
The Rhode Island Health Center Association is advocating for two crucial pieces of legislation. One would increase Medicaid Reimbursement Rates. They are: Senate Bill 896 and House Bill 6046
The other bill would allow for fair access to prescription medication. They are: Senate Bill 114 and House Bill 5634
