Stimulus funding has come through for Open Door Family Medical Centers, a federally qualified community health center founded in 1972. It serves about 40,000 patients in Ossining, Port Chester, Sleepy Hollow and Mount Kisco. In addition, Open Door has offices in four Port Chester schools.
With a $23 million annual budget, Open Door relies on federal, state and country government grants.
 “We receive federal funding that has a lot of strings attached to it,” said Lindsay Farrell, president and CEO. “In order to receive the funds we have to deliver a specified scope of services in a particular way.”
So far Open Door has been eligible for two rounds of stimulus funding.
“The first round (of stimulus funding) was to retain and create jobs, and we got that six months ago,” Farrell said. “It was $650,000 and we used that to hire nurse practitioners and doctors and support staff.”
Open Door just received another round of stimulus funding, this time for $1.3 million.
“This is for facility improvement and health information technology,” Farrell said. “We”™re using that to enhance our health information. We”™re completely electronic, so we”™re buying some new servers and improving conductivity. We”™re converting the paper records rooms into examination rooms. That is the facility portion of the money; we don”™t need to store charts on site anymore.”
Open Door is applying for the third round of stimulus money on Aug. 6.
“That one is going to be highly competitive,” Farrell said. “We”™re going to apply and hopefully we”™re going to be successful, but you never know. I think we”™re in a terrific position because we are electronic and we provide primary care.”
Farrell said research has shown the way to save money in the health care system is to make sure patients have a medical home, or a relationship with a family doctor “rather than running off to the ER or specialists.”
Open Door offers primary medical care, mental health services, dentistry and nutrition, to name a few.
“Even though we”™re a group doctors”™ and dentists”™ office, the community owns the practice not the doctors,” Farrell said. “A hospital has boards of doctors and rich people. We have a governing board made up of patients.”
Patients are primarily Latino; Farrell said although some may be in this country illegally Â
“we don”™t know what everybody”™s status is but the governing board is representative of the patient population.”
Anybody can come to Open Door for medical care, “but in order to qualify for the discounts you must be below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which for a family of four might be $35,000,” Farrell said. “They pay on a sliding fee scale depending on their income. Most people qualify for the lowest discount.”
Farrell noticed an increase of 20 percent in demand for services starting in October 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Farrell said Open Door is considering growing.
“There are needs all over the region, so we”™re talking to communities that are interested in having us,” Farrell said.
“I think we”™re in a great spot to improve health care in America as long as we can keep up with demand,” Farrell said.
