Morning Star

Healthcare
Initiative
Young Chung, Kristen Durbin, Aashish
Panjwani, & Jose Rodriguez
Professor Dorough
BCOM3311
Team Purple
The University of Texas at Dallas

Table of Contents
Introduction ...............................................................................................2
Background & Problem ............................................................................3
Proposal.......................................................................................................4
Plan & Schedule ........................................................................................5
Success Measures .......................................................................................7
Staffing .......................................................................................................7
Budget .........................................................................................................8
Conclusion ..................................................................................................9
References ..................................................................................................11
Grading Rubric .........................................................................................12
Appendices .................................................................................................13

Introduction
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Texas is the uninsured capital of the United States, according to the Texas Medical
Association. Our state ranks number one in not only adults who lack health insurance, but also
children who lack health insurance. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone, 38% of people are
uninsured which makes DFW the nations lowest ranking city of uninsured individuals. This
issue is a growing problem in our area even with the recent passing of the Affordable Care Act.
Moreover, as a state that did not participate in the expansion of Medicaid, Texas cuts off
Medicaid to families who earn more than $3,760 for a family of three. The refusal of Texas to
expand Medicaid has led to families to be stuck in the middle of Medicaid and the Healthcare
Marketplace, which contributes considerably to the 38% of uninsured adults and children. People
who lack health insurance are unable to receive quality healthcare; therefore, uninsured citizens
are forced to live a lower quality of life. Although this issue is challenging to overcome, its
resolution is crucial to the betterment of the people in our area. In the battle against this growing
issue, our organization plans to facilitate health care outreach to patients who need care the most,
assist with transportation to and from healthcare centers, and to simplify the process through
which individuals are able to obtain health insurance. We will strive to increase uninsured Dallas
County residents access to healthcare by assisting with care coordination, insurance
applications, and transportation. This problem is not unsurmountable but will, undoubtedly, need
a push from organizations such as ours to provide better access to healthcare in the Dallas-Fort
Worth area.

Background & Problem

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Utilizing our staffs knowledge of healthcare administration and care coordination skills,
the office of Morning Star Pediatrics developed a community healthcare initiative to help address
the top healthcare needs of Dallas County Residents. While the Dallas area continues to grow
due to the thriving economic environment, 14% of residents lived below the federal poverty line
in 2010. Many of these residents face health disparities and lack access to preventative
healthcare, especially those who are uninsured. According to the Dignity Healths Community
Needs Index, a 1-5 scoring system that accounts for socioeconomic and access barriers that affect
health, Dallas County scored 3.9. Barriers to healthcare access include income, language,
education, insurance, and housing. Communities with higher CNI scores tend to have higher
hospital utilization for cases that could have been avoided with outpatient preventative care.
Communities such as South, Southwest, and Southeast Dallas earned significantly higher CNI
scores. These communities have the highest percentage of uninsured as well as the highest levels
of unemployment. Of these communities, South and Southwest Dallas areas have lowest
economic indicators with 25% of residents falling below the federal poverty line. Additionally,
Source: Dallas County Health Needs Assessment , 2012

the number of Dallas residents without health insurance continues to grow. High utilization of

emergency services, especially by those uninsured, increases healthcare costs in the DFW area.
Dallas County has also experienced an increase in the population suffering from chronic
diseases. Often preventable, chronic disease management is especially important to address
rising healthcare costs and population health. Without community programs to address
healthcare needs, Dallas County residents will continue to face barriers such as unmet healthcare
needs, lack of preventative care and chronic disease management, and unnecessary hospital
utilization.

Proposal
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To address healthcare needs of Dallas County, Morning Star Healthcare Initiative seeks to
increase Dallas County residents access to healthcare. Specifically, we will focus our efforts in
the communities of South, Southwest, and Southeast Dallas as these communities face the most
disparities. Our efforts will place emphasis on informing, educating and assisting residents with
enrollment into insurance plans such as Medicaid or Marketplace Exchange policies during the
upcoming enrollment period. Many families lack the knowledge or resources to understand their
healthcare benefit options or follow through with enrollment. By assisting with the enrollment
process and assigning residents to a Patient Centered Medical Home, a new healthcare trend
promoting preventative care, Morning Star Healthcare Initiative will help decrease the number of
uninsured and increase the number of residents with personal physicians. Because Texas elected
to not expand Medicaid coverage, our program seeks to address the growing coverage gap. For
residents that do not qualify for Medicaid or for an Exchange policy, Morning Star Healthcare
Initiative will place high risk individuals, those suffering with chronic disease, with one of the
participating providers. Because residents may have difficulty obtaining transportation to
participating providers, weve partnered with Uber to provide discounted transportation services.
In the first year of the program, our goal is to provide 200 annual preventative visits to uninsured
Dallas County residents. For uninsured residents that do not meet program criteria for free
preventative care, our staff will coordinate care with local health clinics that provide a variety of
low or not-cost care to adults, pregnant women and children. By assisting residents with
insurance enrollment, assigning recently insured residents to a Patient Centered Medical Home
and coordinating care for the uninsured, Morning Star Healthcare Initiate will not only help
reduce Dallas Countys healthcare costs but also improve population health.

Plan & Schedule

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To plan and schedule our business, we must first contact 10 doctors, 5 hospitals, and 5
laboratories.

Hospitals:
Forest Park Medical Center: 11990 N Central Expy, Dallas, TX
Medical City Dallas Hospital: 7777 Forest Ln, Dallas, TX
Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children: 2222 Welborn St, Dallas, TX
Dallas VA Medical Center: 4500 S Lancaster Rd, Dallas, TX
Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas: 3500 Gaston Ave, Dallas, TX

Doctors:
Raymon Aggarwal Internal Medicine
Hania Alaidroos Family Medicine
Ramesh Amara Internal Medicine
David Brehm Family Medicine
Leopoldo M. Basilico Family Medicine
Robert Bryan Allison Internal Medicine
Richard S. Anderson General Surgery
John Moon III Family Medicine
Mark Armstrong Internal Medicine
Phillip Aronoff Internal Medicine

Labs:

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Fidelis Diagnostics: 1601 Elm St #4600, Dallas, TX

Quests Diagnostics: Forest Lane PSC 11613 N Central Expy #120, Dallas, TX
Clinical Pathology Labs: 3600 Gaston Ave, Dallas, TX
Med Center Labs: 8069 Scyene Cir, Dallas, TX
Panoramic Labs: 2121 Panoramic Cir, Dallas, TX

This list is derived from several doctors in a variety of fields most commonly affecting
low income individuals or individuals with no health insurance. We have one general surgeon; he
might be needed for several simple operations. The hospitals and laboratories are distributed
through the Dallas area, so that the people we are helping dont have to travel too far for
treatment or analysis. We have several specialists in family medicine, because it is likely that if
one of the members of the family is uninsured, then they all are. Hospitals we have taken into
account are some big ones like the Baylor University Medical Center, to have access to top-notch
facilities and equipment. We would recognize them as socially responsible hospitals and increase
their exposure. We will also contact smaller and more specialized hospitals such as Texas
Scottish Rite Hospital for Children so we are better prepared for special cases.
After we contact hospitals, doctors and laboratories, we will contact UBER, we will offer
to increase their exposure and help them advertise as a socially responsible company who is
doing their part to improve the community in exchange for free rides, or at least a special rate for
our customers. This will facilitate logistics for individuals who need to go to an appointment or
to a hospital and dont have a vehicle of their own.

Success Measures

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Micro-level success: To gauge micro level success we will survey the people we are
offering services to. We will run several standard tests to gauge their overall health periodically
since we start offering our services. All of this will be recorded and logged, and we will use this
to see how much they improve over the time they are using our services. By asking our clients to
have blood, urine, and other tests every other month, and recording the results we can see any
improvements in their health.
To monitor success for the doctors, laboratories, and hospitals, we will survey them. Our
goal is to increase the doctors clientele due to the positive exposure they will be getting from
working with us. The same is true for laboratories and hospitals. If doctors see an increase in
business, then our goal is met. In the survey we will also include, in the case that a doctors
number of patients has not increased in any meaningful way, if any existing patients or new ones
have mentioned that they heard or saw about his new pro-bono work.
Macro-level success: To measure Success at the social level, we will examine the total
number of people we help and discount that from the total uninsured population in the Dallas
area. By finding out the percentage of people we help, we can better analyze the good we are
doing. We will log this percentage monthly and compare it to previous months to analyze our
growth. Once the operation is fluent, we will expand it and help more people each year.

Staffing
The program will consist of employees of the Morning Star Pediatrics, employees and
doctors from the partner doctors office, volunteers from the Dallas area, a part time
administrative assistant, and two interns. The employees of the partner medical offices will
answer questions from the clients in the program and set up referrals if needed. The volunteer

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doctors agreed to see the clients in the program and provide them with free preventative care,
screen for any abnormalities, and refer them to other specialists if needed. Street team for the
program will be coming from the Dallas area and will be posting and spreading the flyers to the
Dallas area. The administrative assistant will need to have two years of office experience, be
able to pass a background check, and be currently enrolled in college studying Health Care
Management or a related field. The duties of the administrative assistant will be opening up a
file for the client, researching the best medical insurance plan, filling out applications to obtain
medical insurance, calling medical insurance companies to who can provide the best premiums
for the clients, and answering any questions that the client may have. Interns will be helping the
administrative assistant assess clients enrolled in the program and assisting with the filing of
paperwork. Part time administrative assistants compensation will be $20,000 working 30 hours
per week for the first year of the project. For the second year of the project, the pay will go up to
$25,000 as more time will be needed to help the projected number of people. In the third year of
the project, the position will become full time and the compensation will be $30,000. The interns
will be paid $500 each per semester and will receive school credit for their efforts.
Budget
The budget in the first year of the project will be $25,300.00. The Thomas medical
initiative will have $20,000 salary for the part time administrator and set limit of $2,000 to be
paid for Uber rides. The advertisements in D magazine, the Dallas Observer, and the flyers will
be made to find clients to help find affordable insurance. This will have a budget of $300.00.
There will also be a budget of $2,000 to show appreciation and recognition to the street team,
doctors, and medical insurance contacts providing them with certificates, dinner, snacks, and gift
cards to their favorite restaurants

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$500.00 stipend will be offered to the two interns who help in

the project. Dr. Thomas will provide $1,000 for the salary of the part time assistant, and $200.00
in the car rides. The rest will be raised through the other partner doctors, and selling raffle
tickets to provide the money needed to accomplish the goals of the program, and the funds
provided by the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. In the first year of the project, it will help 200
people find affordable health care insurance, and preventative care to people who cannot obtain
insurance. This project will have very good impact on the Dallas residents. The people that will
be also provided with any immunizations they need. The cost of the physicals provided will
have an estimated cost of $100.00 per person, and $25 per immunizations provided to the 200
clients helped in the first year of the project. Also, the insurance premiums could have savings
up to $200.00 per month to the clients. The time and expertise of the provided by the partner
doctors, volunteers to the clients of the program will be priceless. They see the importance of the
health care issue in the Dallas area. The budget will increase after the first year as more hours
will be needed for the part time administrative assistant to help more people in the second year,
more Uber riders will be needed, and more partner doctors offices will be added. In the third
year and on, the part time administrative position will become a full time position as the program
will help more people to achieve the goal in obtaining affordable health insurance and stay
healthy after the preventative care and the appointments scheduled for the clients as needed.

Conclusion
The Medical Initiative will help people find affordable health care options. Rising health
costs will become a less burden to the people who find the affordable insurance premiums
through the program. The physicals done by our partner doctors will help our clients assess their
health and find care using their insurance obtained through the program. There will be less
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emergency room visits to the hospitals as the program will be able to help people stay healthy.
Also finding good doctors is hard for people and that will ease that problem as the project adds
more partner doctors as the program progresses. Medical insurance is needed as most people do
not have the money to pay for important procedures to find out what is going on with their body,
and to fix what is ailing them. Paying subsidized insurance premiums will be able to help them
to pay for the medical appointments that the people might need in the future. The money
received from the Dallas Chamber of Commerce will help in implementing the goals of the
program, and the future of the program.

Works Cited
Edwards, Jennifer, Lynn Schultz, and Sue Pickens. "The Dallas County Community Health
Needs Assesment ." Parkland Hospital . Dallas County Health & Human Services , 2012.
Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.parklandhospital.com/Uploads/Public/Documents/PDFs/Community/Comm
unity-Health-Needs-Assessment.pdf>.

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Castaares, Tina. "Improving Healthcare Access: Finding Solutions in a Time of Crisis ." Policy
Concensus . National Policy Concensus Center , Nov. 2004. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.policyconsensus.org/publications/reports/docs/Healthcare.pdf>.
Millman, Jason. "Parents Earning More than $3,760 Are 'too Rich' to Qualify for Medicaid in
Texas." Washington Post. The Washington Post, Jan. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
http://directory.dmagazine.com/doctors/?awards_mv=Best+Doctors+2014
http://directory.dmagazine.com/doctors/?awards_mv=Best+Doctors+2013

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