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As reported by Yahoo and the Associated Press:
Drugstore operator Walgreens will offer free clinic visits to the unemployed and uninsured for the rest of the year, providing tests and routine treatment for minor ailments through its walk-in clinics — though patients will still pay for precriptions.
Walgreens said patients who lose their job and health insurance after March 31 will be able to get free treatment at its in-store Take Care clinics for respiratory problems, allergies, infections and skin conditions, among other ailments. Typically those treatments cost $59 or more for patients with no insurance.
Hal Rosenbluth, chairman of the Take Care Health Systems division, described the plan as something close to an experiment: He said Walgreens isn’t sure of patient demand or how much providing the services might cost the company.
It’s likely to generate more attention for the clinics, however. Rosenbluth said a typical Take Care patient tells eight other people about his or her experience. So far, about 30 percent of Take Care patients were new customers to Walgreens.
The program is expected to last through the end of 2009. Walgreens runs 341 Take Care clinics in 35 markets around the country, including Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and Cleveland.
Free services will be offered only from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Walgreens said it will not offer free checkups, vaccinations or other injections because it is focusing on providing services patients might otherwise get at an urgent-care center or even an emergency room.
Patients must present proof they are unemployed, including a federal or state unemployment determination letter and an unemployment check stub. They will have to sign a form at the clinic saying they have lost their jobs and health benefits. If they find a new job or get new health insurance, they will no longer be eligible for free care.
Spouses and children are also eligible for free services if they don’t have insurance of their own.
Medical lab operator Quest Diagnostics is participating in the program by offering free tests for step throat and urinary tract infections.
Walgreens bought the Take Care clinics in May 2007. Take Care says it has seen about 1.2 million patients since its launch in November 2005 and estimates that up to 30 percent of them were uninsured.
United Way’s Disaster Services blog has been launched to provide the Tampa Bay community – citizens and health and human services agencies — with a disaster planning, mitigation, and recovery resource.
In addition to finding help with getting your family ready for a disaster, human service agencies will find help with business continuity planning as well.
You will also be kept up to date on United Way’s work with its many partners with respect to the following:
1. The development of Volunteer Reception Centers that are primed and ready to go in the case of a major disaster.
2. The development of collaborations throughout Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties that work to mobilize human service organizations, governments, business, and volunteer organizations when a major disaster strikes.
3. Opportunities for human service agencies to participate in disaster training workshops.
4. Information for citizens about how to prepare for, and respond to, a major disaster.
5. Where to go for help if and when a major disaster strikes.
If you have any ideas about how this blog could better help you and the community, please contact Sheri Taylor at United Way. Her email is staylor@uwtb.org and her phone number is 813-274-0962.
If you would like to volunteer for a post-disaster opprtunity, please register with us for opportunties posted HERE.
WEDU will premiere their new documentary The Uninsured: Help and Hope, on Thursday, May 22nd at 9:00 p.m.
The one-hour program looks at the struggles of everyday residents on the west coast of Florida caught in the middle of America’s health insurance crisis. A health insurance crisis that has created an uninsured crisis devastating lives, families, and our economy.
Fortunately, the Tampa Bay area is not without compassionate hands of help and because of this, thousands of people, with no place else to turn, have gained much needed access to quality medical care. Please tune in to meet some of the local organizations and volunteers, including doctors, nurses and concerned citizens, who are making a difference right here in our own community.
WEDU Official Web Site: www.wedu.org
I have been thinking about innovation. It’s a word we all use and while we intuit its meaning, it is also a word that can have an elusive definition. Check a dictionary (I used dictionary.com) and the definition is not crystal clear, at least to me: “something new or different introduced.”
When most of us think of innovation or of being innovative, we attach value to the words. We naturally think innovations should be good things, not just anything “new.” We believe innovation should improve quality or speed things up or save money, make life easier, and other stuff like that.
Some writers talk about the process of innovation and in that type of discussion, give shape to what the term means. So, not really a definition, but rather a roadmap toward innovative solutions and, I believe, the development of an organizational culture that will result in new ideas and adjustments to our businesses that add value.
The Practice of Leadership blog reports on five principles of innovation as developed by the Center for Creative Leadership. Here is an overview of what the blog tells us.
Innovation begins with people. Without the minds, creativity, and problem solving skills of people – typically people working together – innovation will not take place. The first principle the writers mention is that Innovation begins when people convert problems to ideas. This involves people making inquiries, analyzing things, paying attention to obstacles as well as aspirations. “The process of innovation is indebted to the trouble that comes about when we are surrounded by that which is not solved, not smooth and not simple.” As well, innovation requires a culture and climate “that encourages inquiry and welcomes problems.”
This means that staff must feel free to pose the difficult question, offer points of view that might be seen as unconventional or, at times, out in left field. People must feel free and safe to risk going against the grain. An organization that is suspicious of differences or that automatically chooses tradition over challenging the norm will be hard pressed to instill an innovative spirit among its people.
This is not to say that tradition and convention are not to be valued. In every organization there are habits and patterns, systems and processes, and protocols and techniques that should be understood before one is quick to change them. Valuing how we do things, however, does not make how we do things sacrosanct.
If an organization’s leadership is not able to move with eyes open and accept change as not only what happens to us, but more so what we must engage in to be continually successful and valued, the organization will, at best, just plod along.
Think for a moment about the Swiss who for so many years were the kingpins of watch making. Swiss watches were synonymous with quality. There was prestige associated with owning such a time piece. The Swiss were also known for being innovative, but they became complacent and unable to break out of their paradigm of what a watch was.
Did you know that the Swiss invented the digital watch? They even showcased their invention at a convention, but they were so sure their idea was not marketable, they did not bother to patent it. It was the Japanese who saw the innovation, recognized the marketability of this fresh, exciting idea of what a watch was.
The result was that in a very short time, digital time pieces took over the market place, with the Japanese crowned as the new kingpin. The Swiss were reduced to being a minor player for many years. Their own innovation lost to their inability to recognize how their bright minds could revolutionize watches.
This suggests that innovation is only truly innovation when it moves beyond an idea to something that exists and is used. In other words, innovative minds will generate ideas, often out of the box ideas, but not all ideas will come to fruition, not all ideas will become innovations. It also suggests that the innovative process somehow must result in a paradigm shift. For the Swiss, they were so locked in to what a watch is, they could not see what a watch could be.
Stay tuned for Part Two which will cover the second principle of innovation which is: “Innovation needs a system.”
RCS is a registered 501 (c) 3 organization with four distinct yet interwoven programs working together to provide basic needs to people in Pinellas County
RCS Food Bank is the largest distributor of food to those in need in Pinellas County, serving between 4,000 and 5,000 individuals monthly at RCS’s warehouse and through 62 sub-sites.
RCS Grace House provides 8 weeks of apartment-style shelter to homeless families along with all of life’s necessities, maximizing their opportunity to reach self-sufficiency.
The Haven of RCS empowers victims of domestic violence to become survivors, offering shelter, legal advocacy, 911 phones, individual and group support, preventative education and more.
The RCS Thrift Store offers a dignified shopping experience at no charge to participants in RCS programs while providing revenue to RCS through sales to the public, including household items and furniture.
For more information: http://www.rcshelps.com
Telephone: 727-584-3528
United Way funds The Haven and the Food Bank.
Bay Area Legal Services assists and supports individuals with limited access to legal services with a focus on elderly and low-income residents in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties
The staff at Bay Area Legal Services provides free counseling and representation to eligible clients for civil legal problems including but not limited to the following areas: family law, including divorce, custody and domestic violence; senior advocacy; fair housing; consumer law; and individual rights.
United Way supports Bay Area Legal Services’ family Law preservation and senior home ownership program.
For more information: http://www.bals.org/
Telephone: 813-232-1343
