How to go
Who: Health Partners Free Clinic
What: Healing Jar Gala, to benefit Health Partners Free Clinic
Where: Fort Piqua Plaza
When: May 7
More info/RSVPs: Justin Coby, 937-332-0894, ext. 208
Deborah Miller is using lessons learned growing with the local Health Partners Free Clinic for 13 years to help lead the Ohio Association of Free Clinics.
Miller, a registered nurse, West Milton resident and former executive director of Miami County’s free clinic, has overseen the association representing the state’s 55 free clinics for just more than a year.
The association members include a clinic that meets twice a month in a church basement using a $1,000 budget to others offering care five to six days a week with a $2 million budget. Clinics are staffed mostly with volunteers and remain very community oriented, Miller said.
Leading a free clinic or the statewide association involves wearing “tons of hats as you still juggle a lot of things,” she said.
The past year has been a busy one for free clinics as they work to adjust to changes resulting from implementing the Affordable Care Act to expanding Medicaid in Ohio.
Miller’s work has ranged from association membership development, to keeping clinics up to date with ACA roll out, finding help for clinics through a grant providing VISTA workers for clinics and securing another grant to bring ACA patient navigators to clinics including Miami County’s.
Miller also has testified at the Ohio General Assembly on a proposed bill to expand what free clinics can do including allowing them to treat people without fear of lawsuits.
She speaks fondly of her years with the Health Partners Free Clinic, which serves the uninsured and underinsured. She was with the clinic from its early days as a 10-hour-a-week clinic director through the building of its own home, the Paul G. Duke Health Center, and beyond.
She’ll be the keynote speaker for the clinic’s Healing Jar fundraiser May 7.
Her message likely will include a call for continued support of free clinics, which still will play a vital role in hundreds of thousands’ healthcare statewide despite ACA and Medicaid expansion.
“There is still going to be a tremendous need for free clinics in Ohio,” she said. Among clients will be those exempt from the ACA insurance requirement.
They also will include those who have purchased insurance, as required, but catastrophic policies that demand as much as $10,000 a year deductibles that the holders cannot pay, Miller said. Because those people are now underinsured a number of clinics that previously served the uninsured are looking to expand their mission to add underinsured.
Health Partners has had great support from the Miami County community, Miller said. “The community has been really supportive. That is why it has been so successful. Even with changes in the law, the need is still there. I think Miami County will continue to step up to the plate.”
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