John Snow, Inc. - Day in the Life - Minority Health Care in Washington, D.C.

Minority Health Care in Washington, D.C.

Weaving Health Care Safety Nets for the Under served

Photo of Jay N. Powell Jay N. Powell
MHSA Project Director
JSI/HRSA MCTAC
JSI employee since March, 2002

This rainy workday begins at 7:30 a.m. at JSI's Washington, DC office and will not end until several hours after sunset. For project associates Aisha Moore and Sharon Kelsey and myself, in addition to our regular daily work, today has one major focus: completing the preparations for next month's Bridging Cultures and Enhancing Care HRSA conference in Philadelphia. No time for discussion of NCAA Basketball March Madness pools or geopolitics. No breakfast today either, and lunch will be eaten on the run.

Aisha Moore and Jay Powell prepare for the HRSA-funded Bridging Cultures conference

We are engaged, pumped and ready to go as we tackle the tasks related to Bridging Cultures, our second annual conference on cultural and linguistic competency for serving low-income populations. We've received more than 250 registrations—way beyond our expectation of 150 participants. Aisha, Sharon and I process the registrations, proofread Power Point presentations, collate conference packets, and coordinate logistics with the hotel hosting the conference. The Mann Conference Room, adjacent to our office, now looks like a cross between a mail room, a factory assembly line, and a loading dock.

While we prepare for the conference, we respond to telephone and email inquiries from HRSA grantees and other safety net providers seeking technical assistance and training, and speak with some of our subcontracted consultants. Today's calls range from the routine, such as an individual's request to join our mailing list, to the more complex, such as a grantee's need for guidance in analyzing reimbursement from a managed care organization. Midday, we conduct a technical assistance phone call with a grantee at a school-based health center who wants to create a system for coding and billing patient encounters.

MCTAC—the Managed Care and Health Services Financing Technical Assistance Center—develops and supports technical assistance initiatives to address areas of significant national concern, such as reducing racial and ethnic health disparities among low-income populations and disseminating Medicaid Managed Care Pharmacy Management Best Practices. In operation since October, 1999, MCTAC's goal is to provide high-quality managed care and health services financing technical assistance to HRSA grantees, to give them skills to survive in the managed care environment. MCTAC is part of HRSA's Center for Health Services Financing and Managed Care.

JSI has forged collaborative relationships with national organizations and associations that represent the targeted MCTAC constituency. These contacts provide MCTAC with invaluable insights about high-priority state and local concerns.

During the early afternoon, we gather for our weekly conference call with our client, HRSA's Center for Health Services Financing and Managed Care. We provide an activity report and update on JSI/MCTAC activities and budget, and discuss the timetable of planned marketing activities. Our client expresses particular satisfaction with the number of registrations for our upcoming conference. It's always great to receive feedback that our work helps HRSA grantees improve health services for the Under served

Next, we make a mad, two-block, dash to the Rosslyn Station Metro rail station. We ride the train to downtown Washington, DC and enter the National Press Club for a panel discussion on "Unequal Treatment, One Year Later: Addressing Healthcare Disparities and Communications Needs of Minority Communities." This Congressionally mandated report in 2002 showed that minorities in the U.S. tend to receive lower quality health care than whites, even with the same levels of health care access and insurance. Today's panelists describe some strategies that health care organizations, including philanthropic groups and insurers, have implemented to reduce racial and ethnic health care disparities.

We return to the JSI/DC office for more photocopying and collating to prepare for Bridging Cultures. While we were away, ten more conference registrations came in via our website. Two new technical assistance requests have arrived by email, and five new voice mails need attention. The day has been packed and ambitious but is passing quickly; there is never a dull day at the JSI/HRSA Managed Care and Health Services Financing Technical Assistance Center.