A New Way to Manage Your Volunteer Care

If there were a way to improve how you provide volunteer care, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it? Hundreds of millions of dollars of healthcare are given away for free in San Diego County. And the pressure on you and the whole medical community to care for the medically underserved grows each year. This problem is best handled in collaboration. That is why your San Diego County Medical Society Foundation (SDCMSF) offers Project Access San Diego (PASD), a proven, easy, efficient, and reliable way to coordinate your volunteer services, and, in turn, improve the health of our community.

Collaboration, regardless of the subject matter, produces something better than what we can achieve independently. It results in greater efficiencies, improved outcomes, and reflects a set of diverse inputs.

Consider the music world. As a group, The Beatles took America by storm and changed how we thought of music forever. Paul McCartney alone could not have achieved such success. And, Mick Jagger without the other Rolling Stones just isn’t the same. Sports fans also know that the winning Super Bowl team is only as great as the sum of its parts. No quarterback alone can win that coveted title.

There are also countless examples of how collaboration and cooperation have improved the medical community and the health of our communities. One such example is Project Access San Diego (PASD). PASD is a countywide collaboration of healthcare partners — including hospitals, ancillary services providers, funders, and physicians — all with the shared goal of providing coordinated and efficient volunteer care to the neediest among us.

Simplify and Maximize Your Volunteer Efforts

Think of Project Access San Diego as an extension of your staff, people dedicated to coordinating your volunteer services. Different from other referral efforts of the past, this program is based on a case-management model. Project Access San Diego manages the patient care from beginning to end. We do this through:

• Enrolling Patients Based on Need: We verify financial status so that you can be assured that your volunteer service is reaching those who are most in need.
• Making Appropriate Referrals: We use referral guidelines that ensure that when a PASD patient comes to your office, he or she can take full advantage of the visit.
• Providing Enabling Services: We provide services such as transportation and translation so that you don’t have to wonder if a patient is going to miss an appointment or if there will be a language barrier.
• Providing Case Management Services: We work with each patient one-on-one to coordinate follow-through on all medical needs.
• Providing All Needed Services: Through our partnerships, we ensure that a full scope of services is available to all of our patients, from office visits to hospital services, even including a defined pharmacy benefit.

Working with Project Access San Diego you will know that your volunteer efforts are maximized to the fullest. As a PASD physician, you volunteer your time at whatever level is comfortable for you — that could be two patients per month or two patients per year.

What We Are Not

Project Access San Diego is not designed to take over any part of safety net care in San Diego County. Our purpose is to augment, accentuate, and complement the work of our community partners. Project Access San Diego enhances access to care for the medically underserved by providing case management and care coordination.

Limiting Risk

Project Access San Diego is conscious of your professional liability insurance concerns. When you provide this care for our patients in your own office, your own policy would be in effect, as long as you inform your insurance carrier. We also ensure that each patient you agree to see has a “medical home” where their care is being routinely managed, which also reduces liability.

Measurable Results

Project Access San Diego tracks and quantifies the amount of free healthcare provided. This data helps to relieve some of the pressure on you by educating lawmakers, healthcare organizations, the media, and the community about your contributions.

Don’t Wait Another Day

Begin your new year with a new approach to volunteering. Let Project Access San Diego streamline and simplify your gift of helping others in need. We know you have a heart for healthcare, and we want to work with you to make it a better experience overall. The next time you consider donating your time or hospital services, do it through Project Access San Diego.

Project Access is actively recruiting physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. To get started, you can sign up on our website, SDCMSF.org, or for assistance, please contact Kitty Bailey at (858) 300-2780 or at KBailey@SDCMS.org or Tana Lorah at (858) 300-2779 or at TLorah@SDCMS.org.