I used to work at this place. This bears passing on because the Rodgers Clinic serves such a vital link in our community.
Fiscal realities clash with clinic’s mission
By LYNN HORSLEY
The Kansas City Star
The Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center, which serves many of Kansas City’s neediest residents, is facing its own financial challenges as it tries to improve its organizational health.
The agency, which each year treats a diverse population of about 24,000 patients, has a new executive director and a recovery plan. But Director Hilda Fuentes said the center’s long-term survival will depend on more support from the community, which means letting the public know about the clinic’s value to the city.
“In today’s day and time, because of huge competition for health-care dollars, we have to be in a better position to tell our story so others will invest in us,” Fuentes said. “One reason I was brought on board was to help to sustain the operation and to create a financially viable organization.”
Founded in 1967 by Samuel Rodgers, the center is one of Kansas City’s oldest and largest community health clinics. Rodgers, one of the country’s first African-American physicians allowed to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, first fought for high-quality health care in the 1940s at General Hospital No. 2, then the city’s hospital for blacks and Hispanics.
Rodgers created the health center, then located at the Wayne Minor housing project, to serve disadvantaged residents. Rodgers died in 1999.
The center now offers adult and pediatric medical and dental care in a 33-year-old building at 825 Euclid Ave. It also provides drug-abuse treatment, foster-care case management, school-based medical and dental services and other services at satellite offices.
The center is best known for serving people who move to Kansas City from around the globe. Interpreters speak Spanish, Vietnamese, Bosnian, Albanian, German, Croatian, Kurdish, Arabic, Somali and French.
“I don’t think anybody else, perhaps with the exception of Truman (Medical Center), sees the diversity of patients that we see,” said Rhonda Holman, board treasurer. “People are bowled over by the nationalities that come in.”
More than half the center’s patients lack health insurance, and most are indigent. That is part of the reason the clinic has recently experienced financial problems, especially as federal and state funds have dwindled.
On Oct. 11, three weeks after she was named director, Fuentes sought help from the city. She told the City Council’s Finance Committee that Rodgers had a cash-flow crunch and asked that the city accelerate its health-levy payment, “so we can pay our contractors, meet a December payroll and then start the process anew as we continue to rebuild Samuel Rodgers to its former status.”
The council agreed to speed the levy payments that usually go to the center monthly. The center was advanced its October, November and December payments, totaling about $294,000 of its annual $1.1 million allocation.
Kansas City provides health-levy funding to five community clinics, including Rodgers. The others are the Free Health Clinic, Northland Health Care Access, Cabot Westside Clinic and Swope Health Services. None of the others has alerted the city to financial difficulties. Rodgers and Swope are the largest clinics, and the city Health Department said it was important that Rodgers be sustained.
“Sam Rodgers fills a very, very important niche,” city health director Rex Archer said. “They deal with many of the immigrants that come into Kansas City. … Beyond just treating those individuals, some come in from countries where public health and control of infectious diseases isn’t as strong.”
Board members say the clinic came close to shutting its doors in the past year but has started to turn the corner. It is cutting $500,000 from its $13.7 million budget and plans modest layoffs that officials say will not affect the clinical staff. It is seeking more money from patients who can afford to pay for a portion of their care and is increasing the efficiency of its insurance-collection procedures.
“Our financial situation has improved in the past year, but we have a ways to go,” said Yvonne Kean, the center’s chief financial officer. “We need to follow our plan and continue to find funding because the uninsured problem continues to grow.”
While the city’s other community health centers have had aggressive fund-raising campaigns or have formed partnerships with hospitals, Rodgers has not had that strategy until now. Board members said that Rodgers himself did not aggressively pursue charitable giving. But the government aid and insurance funds that sustained the agency for years are growing scarcer.
“We know we need to do aggressive fund development,” Holman said. “We also understand we can’t go to the public to ask for charitable donations without making sure we have done everything within our power to merit the support.”
There are other challenges. The building on Euclid has a leaky roof, old carpeting and wallpaper, cramped exam rooms and other deficiencies. Fuentes is scrambling for funds to address immediate maintenance needs while planning long term for a new building. Her goal is to live up to Rodgers’ dream of providing exceptional health care, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.
“I’m here, we’re here, to fulfill Dr. Rodgers’ legacy of caring for the poor and most vulnerable of our community,” she said.
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Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center
■ Headquarters: 825 Euclid Ave. since 1972.
■ Services provided at main location or satellite locations: Adult and pediatric medicine and dentistry; drug-abuse treatment; foster-care case management; Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Food Program; obstetric and gynecological services; AIDS treatment.
■ Patients served annually: Nearly 24,000
■ Languages spoken: Spanish, French, German, Croatian, Bosnian, Somali, Vietnamese, Albanian, Kurdish, Arabic.
■ Budget: More than $13 million.
■ City health-levy funding: $1.1 million
Fiscal realities clash with clinic’s mission
By LYNN HORSLEY
The Kansas City Star
The Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center, which serves many of Kansas City’s neediest residents, is facing its own financial challenges as it tries to improve its organizational health.
The agency, which each year treats a diverse population of about 24,000 patients, has a new executive director and a recovery plan. But Director Hilda Fuentes said the center’s long-term survival will depend on more support from the community, which means letting the public know about the clinic’s value to the city.
“In today’s day and time, because of huge competition for health-care dollars, we have to be in a better position to tell our story so others will invest in us,” Fuentes said. “One reason I was brought on board was to help to sustain the operation and to create a financially viable organization.”
Founded in 1967 by Samuel Rodgers, the center is one of Kansas City’s oldest and largest community health clinics. Rodgers, one of the country’s first African-American physicians allowed to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, first fought for high-quality health care in the 1940s at General Hospital No. 2, then the city’s hospital for blacks and Hispanics.
Rodgers created the health center, then located at the Wayne Minor housing project, to serve disadvantaged residents. Rodgers died in 1999.
The center now offers adult and pediatric medical and dental care in a 33-year-old building at 825 Euclid Ave. It also provides drug-abuse treatment, foster-care case management, school-based medical and dental services and other services at satellite offices.
The center is best known for serving people who move to Kansas City from around the globe. Interpreters speak Spanish, Vietnamese, Bosnian, Albanian, German, Croatian, Kurdish, Arabic, Somali and French.
“I don’t think anybody else, perhaps with the exception of Truman (Medical Center), sees the diversity of patients that we see,” said Rhonda Holman, board treasurer. “People are bowled over by the nationalities that come in.”
More than half the center’s patients lack health insurance, and most are indigent. That is part of the reason the clinic has recently experienced financial problems, especially as federal and state funds have dwindled.
On Oct. 11, three weeks after she was named director, Fuentes sought help from the city. She told the City Council’s Finance Committee that Rodgers had a cash-flow crunch and asked that the city accelerate its health-levy payment, “so we can pay our contractors, meet a December payroll and then start the process anew as we continue to rebuild Samuel Rodgers to its former status.”
The council agreed to speed the levy payments that usually go to the center monthly. The center was advanced its October, November and December payments, totaling about $294,000 of its annual $1.1 million allocation.
Kansas City provides health-levy funding to five community clinics, including Rodgers. The others are the Free Health Clinic, Northland Health Care Access, Cabot Westside Clinic and Swope Health Services. None of the others has alerted the city to financial difficulties. Rodgers and Swope are the largest clinics, and the city Health Department said it was important that Rodgers be sustained.
“Sam Rodgers fills a very, very important niche,” city health director Rex Archer said. “They deal with many of the immigrants that come into Kansas City. … Beyond just treating those individuals, some come in from countries where public health and control of infectious diseases isn’t as strong.”
Board members say the clinic came close to shutting its doors in the past year but has started to turn the corner. It is cutting $500,000 from its $13.7 million budget and plans modest layoffs that officials say will not affect the clinical staff. It is seeking more money from patients who can afford to pay for a portion of their care and is increasing the efficiency of its insurance-collection procedures.
“Our financial situation has improved in the past year, but we have a ways to go,” said Yvonne Kean, the center’s chief financial officer. “We need to follow our plan and continue to find funding because the uninsured problem continues to grow.”
While the city’s other community health centers have had aggressive fund-raising campaigns or have formed partnerships with hospitals, Rodgers has not had that strategy until now. Board members said that Rodgers himself did not aggressively pursue charitable giving. But the government aid and insurance funds that sustained the agency for years are growing scarcer.
“We know we need to do aggressive fund development,” Holman said. “We also understand we can’t go to the public to ask for charitable donations without making sure we have done everything within our power to merit the support.”
There are other challenges. The building on Euclid has a leaky roof, old carpeting and wallpaper, cramped exam rooms and other deficiencies. Fuentes is scrambling for funds to address immediate maintenance needs while planning long term for a new building. Her goal is to live up to Rodgers’ dream of providing exceptional health care, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.
“I’m here, we’re here, to fulfill Dr. Rodgers’ legacy of caring for the poor and most vulnerable of our community,” she said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center
■ Headquarters: 825 Euclid Ave. since 1972.
■ Services provided at main location or satellite locations: Adult and pediatric medicine and dentistry; drug-abuse treatment; foster-care case management; Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Food Program; obstetric and gynecological services; AIDS treatment.
■ Patients served annually: Nearly 24,000
■ Languages spoken: Spanish, French, German, Croatian, Bosnian, Somali, Vietnamese, Albanian, Kurdish, Arabic.
■ Budget: More than $13 million.
■ City health-levy funding: $1.1 million
