By: Beau Boughamer

Public News Service reported with a Virginia perspective on health center savings.

The National Association of Community Healthcare Centers has compared the costs of serving patients treated in the Centers to the costs of serving people elsewhere. It found that the Centers saved the country between $9.9 billion and $24 billion a year.

In Virginia, 105 Community Health Center sites serve more than 240,000 people, says Rick Shinn, a spokesman for the Virginia Community Healthcare Association. They provide health care to people with and without health insurance.

“The reduction in cost to Medicaid, the reduction in cost of providing appropriate primary care – as opposed to, say, emergency room treatment, which is going to be much more expensive – is obviously a major cost savings to the country.”