INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Treasure Coast Community Health Foundation Executive Director Steve Dorrance probably never thought he would be in the health-care industry.
Dorrance’s resume includes a handful of high-ranking executive positions in the aviation industry, coupled with years of experience working for industry giants like Ernst and Young.
Most recently, the Harvard alum with a master’s degree in organizational Development, was the acting Chief Operating Officer of Pilot Training College, an Ireland-based company that trains cockpit-ready commercial pilots to meet Federal Aviation Authority and the Joint Aviation Authority standards.
After decades of helping companies make as much money as possible, Dorrance now heads up a foundation for a non-profit corporation whose goal is to break even every month.
The addition of Dorrance to the Foundation, a supporting organization to Treasure Coast Community Health, Inc., brings financial know-how to the table for Indian River County’s second-largest provider of fully integrated healthcare services.
“I grew up as a Bostonian and I had the best health care and treatment available in that market, and the best insurance that money could buy,” Dorrance said. “Now that I’m actually in the business, I have a true appreciation for what hard-working folks who don’t have medical care go through, how much it impacts their lives, and what an important void in the marketplace this clinic and our services fill.”
“One of the largest myths about the Treasure Coast Community Health Foundation is that we serve a largely indigent population,” Dorrance added. “Certainly, some of our patients are in that category, but only about 6 percent. “Our patients pay for services on a sliding scale basis and generate 60 percent of our total $8 million budget. We serve insured, underinsured and hard-working folks who are struggling to make ends meet.”
According to CEO Vicki Soulé, Soulé the corporation’s motto is, “Health care for all people regardless of their ability to pay.”
Soulé has been on the executive team of Treasure Coast Community Health since June 2008, first as COO and more recently as CEO.
She was formerly director of diagnostics and ambulatory care services for Indian River Memorial Hospital, now Indian River Medical Center.
She served as director of cancer care for the Florida Hospital Memorial System prior to moving to Vero Beach, and is a fellow in the American College of Health Care Executives.
“We’re providing primary care at Treasure Coast Community Health, where the hospital is more emergency care and in-patient-based,” Soulé said. “The hospital does have a strong medical staff, but many of their staff, for economic reasons, find it difficult to accept more than a few people without insurance or Medicaid.
Medicaid is a very bureaucratic process in this state for professionals to work with.”
She explained that reimbursement rates haven’t changed since 1996 and don’t cover their costs. With clinics in Fellsmere, on Olso Road south of Vero Beach, and a pediatric center in Sebastian, Treasure Coast Community Health sees over 14,000 patients in Indian River County for a total of 48,000 visits so far in 2011.
The Fellsmere and Oslo Road locations are over 10,000 square feet in size, with another facility of the same size slated to go into the Omni Center. The specialized Sebastian location is over 4,000 square feet in size. “Treasure Coast Community Health is really a health care home for folks,” Dorrance said, explaining that the health department and hospital are on hand to meet emergency needs, not routine, day-to-day type care. “We provide mental health, dental, and a full range of medical care as well. Our doctors are either board certified or eligible. We provide healthcare to all and reduce the burden, and the associated high cost of routine treatment in the emergency room.” Through a variety of mechanisms, Treasure Coast Community Health is able to supplement a portion of health care costs for its patients.
The organization receives some local support through the hospital district, and also through the federal government on a common, not per-head basis.
“The government gives us a grant to spread amongst as many people as we can by allowing sliding-scale fee discounts,” Soulé said. “We charge the median rate that is charged by others in the community, then discount based on the individual’s income and family size using federal poverty level guidelines that are released every year.”
She explained if a charge is $100 and the medical group gave 20, 40, 60, or 80 percent discounts, whatever discount level given to the patient is taken out of the federal allotment.
“The federal funding is very limited,” she said. “That’s why we’ve founded our foundation this year to try to get a little more local support. We have very, very generous individuals in this community, that by and large, probably don’t know all the economic details of others in the community.”
A tour through the three-year-old Oslo Road facility reveals state-of-the-art equipment including a 360-degree dental X-ray machine and a multi-faceted staff.
Something else fairly new at Treasure Coast Community Health is the presence of gynecologist Dr. Marian A. Sampson, giving the organization a full-time OB/GYN between the Fellsmere and Olso Road locations.
“Fellsmere didn’t have fluoride in their water for a number of years,” Soulé said. “We screen all of those kids in second and fifth grade because that is when they get their adult molars and we bus all of the eligible kids to the clinic in one day.
Last year, we had over 160 kids, and we provided over $27,000 in sealant material.”
Indian River County School Superintendent Dr. Fran Adams liked the idea of expanding that program, and in January the Oslo Road clinic will do the same thing for its area second- and fifth-graders.
By using area dental students from the community colleges to assist, which also satisfies part of their training curriculum, for the mass procedures, they have the necessary personnel to perform the sealants.
“We were able to put full dental and medical technology into the (Oslo Road) dental suite,” Soulé said. “Recently, Impact 100 graciously gave us $100,000 dollars so that we can digitize all of the X-ray and X-ran equipment in Fellsmere, then we’ll have an electronic dental record and get rid of the paper charts. All their records will be state-of-the-art.”
