neighborhoodhealthtn Sign Up Information

From Abi Ibrahim, Nurse Practitioner at the East Side Clinic: “Just want to share in some praise for outreach team. Yesterday I had a new 1^st OB who is about 30 weeks along, a migrant from Honduras who has only been in Nashville for 2 weeks and previously in detention for some time before that. Given she was so far along I really needed her to get CoverKids started as soon as possible. I called an outreach team member who was at a training session, but she immediately drove back to help our patient. I’m very grateful for her at Napier!

We don't have a Hepatitis A outbreak in Nashville, like what was seen in Kentucky. Neighborhood Health is one important reason why.

Neighborhood Health has vaccinated 1,776 at-risk adults for hepatitis A since the outbreak was declared in December of 2017.

Dr. Cathcart, holds a Medical Doctorate (MD) from University of South Carolina, and has a demonstrated a commitment of service to preventative health and physical fitness for both adults and children. Most recently, Dr. Cathcart completed a fellowship with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, focusing on pediatric emergency medicine. He previously worked at Regions Hospital in St. Paul Minnesota. Notwithstanding his demanding work and academic commitments, Dr. Cathcart volunteered as an assistant track and field coach and has served as a clinical medicine instructor. 

This year Olivia Seay, one of our Patient Navigators, was honored by her colleagues with the Bufwack Award. According to her coworkers, "She serves as an excellent example to all of us."

Along with the work she does every day to enroll patients in insurance and benefits programs, she has been instrumental in organizing the March of Dimes prenatal groups,and developing and implementing systems to track long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) devices.

Neighborhood Health is lucky to have Olivia!

Around this time each year, the federal government releases some key data for the previous year. We have been crunching numbers, and were surprised by what the data show. At the end of 2017, we at Neighborhood Health served 15,800 uninsured patients for the year. By the end of 2018, we had served 17,200 uninsured patients – and we did this with no increase in our federal funding. (Our own data show that trend has continued through 2019.) That is impressive – and on mission.

Several factors caused our number of uninsured patients to grow. First, the threatened closure of the safety net Nashville General Hospital in late 2017 led some providers there to depart – leaving uninsured patients unable to get care. Second, another community health center in Antioch, ProHealth, abruptly closed in late 2018 – leaving its uninsured patients with few options. Third, TennCare enrollment among our patients (and statewide) fell by 15% over 18 months, but these patients continue to come for us for care. At the same time, we began to care for a surge of patients with high deductible health plans who are only nominally insured. Indeed, we saw and are seeing many more uninsured folks and more folks who have less and less coverage if they have any at all.

Here is the most important reason our number of uninsured patients went up: Neighborhood Health kept our doors open to all new patients (regardless of their insurance status) throughout. This was a unique response. The federal data show that no other provider in our area has Neighborhood Health’s record or comes close to our response. Indeed, most safety net providers in our area saw fewer uninsured patients in 2018 compared to 2017. Even when we control for our much larger size relative to other health centers, Neighborhood Health had a proportionally larger increase in uninsured patients.

All of this reflects a special sense of responsibility for us at Neighborhood Health. We appear to have become the largest private provider of primary care in Middle Tennessee – and the largest provider for persons of color. So many now depend on us, and we take that trust seriously.

Despite the lack of new federal and state funding, individual employees at Neighborhood Health found innovative ways in 2019 to serve more patients while also saving money. Through these efforts, we served 1,700 additional patients (including 1,400 additional uninsured patients) in 2019 with roughly the same federal resources. This is an incredible accomplishment, one that greatly advanced our mission to serve Middle Tennesseans.

Neighborhood Health was part of Sarah Varney’s piece entitled “Behind the troubling rise of uninsured American kids,” which aired on PBS News Hour’s national broadcast. You can see the full story at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/behind-the-troubling-rise-of-uninsured-american-kids. 

We are doing our best to give voice to the struggles of immigrants and all patients even as we provide care.