posted Apr 1, 2011 10:55 AM by Brett Lawton [ updated Apr 1, 2011 10:58 AM ]We are thrilled to announce that Jericho Road Family Practice at Resurrection Health is now open on Fridays starting Friday April 1! Our hours of operation will be 9:30am to 4:30pm. This will allow us to see more patients and meet more primary care needs for our neighbors around Genesee and Doat! Please call 892.2775 to make an appointment!
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posted Feb 28, 2011 12:26 PM by Brett Lawton [ updated Feb 28, 2011 12:36 PM ]Please see the messages below from Dr. Glick and Stephanie Lipnicki and help take action to preserve funding for the vulnerable patients we serve! Thanks, Brett
-------------------------- Message from Stephanie Lipnicki - Executive Director of Jericho Road Ministries
Dear Board, JRM & JRFP Staff, and friends of Jericho Road,
Please take time to read this and act on your constitutional rights to respond asap. Below you will find a summary from Dr. Glick on the governmental funding cuts that have been proposed - these are very serious and could be quite detrimental to those we serve. We are asking you to help us respond and voice your concern on behalf of those we serve, both locally and nationally. Attached are three letter templates, as well as a list of local and national politicians that we recommend you contact, regarding three of the issues at stake: Refugees, Health Care, and AmeriCorps. You can insert your name and adapt/personalize the letters to include your perspective and then address them to each politician on the list. The bill is going through the Senate next week, so this is a very time sensitive matter. You should probably fax or email your letters to make sure they are received in a timely manner. Personal contact and follow-up can be very effective - we strongly suggest you consider following up with a personal phone call or even scheduling a visit with a representative's staff member. This is a bipartisan issue, one which needs to be voiced on behalf of those who would be most drastically be effected by these cutbacks.
We need as many as possible to utilize their connections, on all sides of the issue, and help us to garner swing votes to vote against this bill. Perhaps some of you have strategic connections - please let us know if there are others that we can be contacting to share the urgency of our concerns and the stories of those we serve. Finally, help us to spread the word - please share this information with volunteers, supporters, and other concerned citizens who can join our efforts!
-Stephanie Lipnicki----------------------------
Dear Jericho Road Board and team:
Given the severe budget shortfall that New York State and the federal government is facing and the current political climate some quite significant budget cuts are being called for. If implemented this could present us with significant challenges as we serve this community.
I recognize the need for fiscal restraint and so I am not necessarily opposed to calls for shared sacrifices that are needed to pull our state and country out of this fiscal mess. I do not want to just argue against cuts that are in our own self interest. And I firmly believe that in spite of any potential cuts our call at Jericho Road is to find a way to still serve and meet this need.
I also though believe that we are called to advocacy on the behalf of the poor and vulnerable. So when a refugee family in a poverty stricken camp in Kenya is denied the chance to come to Buffalo because Congress decided to cut the funding for refugees, or when a uninsured person is not able to be seen at a Community Health Center or when a family on medicaid loses their eligibility for medicaid because suddenly our governor decides to change eligibility guidlines for this program or when the entire Americorp program is threatened with loss of federal funds then I think we can not be silent. It is our responsibility to stand up and speak on the behalf of the most vulnerable and poor among us. Not because of our own self interest but because it is the right thing to do. This I believe is what Jesus would do.
So there are four major areas of funding that directly effect the folks we serve at Jericho Road.
1. Medicaid. The new Governor has budgeted 3 billion dollars of cuts to this program for this years budget. He appointed 15 person commision and they will report their findings and recommendations in March with regards to what should be cut. One of the people on this comminsion is from Western New York , Ann Monroe of the Community Health Foundation and I have met with her personally and have had numerous conversations with her to advocate for the population we serve. Brett has also testified at a local hearing on behalf of Jericho Road. I will send you a f/u email of a recent article in the New York Times that summarizes the challenges facing this commision as they look for ways to cut 3 billion dollars now without devastating the people served.
2. FQHC. A cut of 1.5 billion dollars has been approved by the United States House of Representatives. This is of special interest to us as we pursue becoming a FQHC. Both President Bush and President Obama have consistently supported expanding FQHCs but now the new Congress is cutting . The US Senate has not approved these cuts. I will send an article from Business First that looked at this topic last week and how it would affect local FQHCs.
3. Refugee resettlement. The USA House Budget passed devastating cuts on funding for refugee resettlement. I will send you a letter from Molly Short the executive director at Journeys End Refugee Services that discusses this further.
4. Americorp. The House Budget passed would immediately stop funding for all Americorp positions immediately! Jericho Road has 16 Americorp fulltime positions presently. I need not tell any of you how much Americorp has helped us carry out our mission. This would be devastating. I will send you an email that discusses these cuts.
Now is the time to pray and to advocate for the most vulnerable and poor. Now is the time for us all to stand up for what is right.
Please pray that our Governor will have wisdom to make sure that the cuts to the State medicaid program are fair and do not unfairly hurt the most vulnerable. Please pray that the US Congress and President will not allow the proposed severe cuts to FQHC funding, Americorp and refugee resettlement to pass. That any cuts will be less severe and more reasonable.
Finally please advocate on behalf of these issues wherever you have opportunity to do so in your sphere of influence.
Sincerely Myron Glick
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posted Feb 14, 2011 9:54 AM by Brett Lawton [ updated Feb 14, 2011 9:55 AM ] This week Jericho Road Family Practice was recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (a national accreditation organization) as a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) at the highest available recognition level - Level 3! This is big news for us and is the culmination of a 2 year project to align Jericho Road Family Practice systems - both work flow and electronic - to enable us to manage the health of our patients in a more preventive way. It should also bring in additional resources to the practice to help us support health improvement for all our patients. Click on the link to the NCQA and the PCMH recognition program for more information.
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posted Feb 14, 2011 9:50 AM by Brett Lawton [ updated Feb 16, 2011 6:26 AM ] posted Feb 12, 2011 8:12 AM by Brett Lawton [ updated Feb 14, 2011 10:03 AM ]
Dear friends of Jericho Road.
As 2010 comes to a close I would like to give you an update on our work at Jericho Road. I also want to thank each of you for your friendship, prayers and support.
In 2010 we had over 30,000 patient visits at Jericho Road Family Practice.
1. 25,000 visits at Barton office. 5,000 visits at Genesee office.
2. about 70% of pts seen this year had medicaid insurance, 12% uninsured and 18% with private insurance or medicare.
3. 46% of all our pts have English as their primary language. Burmese, Somali, Arabic, Spanish and Swahili round out the top six languages spoken by our patients at JRFP.
4. We delivered 160 women. 125 normal vaginal deliveries. 35 c-sections. c-section rate of 22%.
JRFP has 3 family physicians, 5 nurse practitioners and 1 physician assistant and a support staff of over 40 people. Next summer we will be losing Dr Bhandari as she and her husband are moving to the Binghamton NY area where her husband will be starting a private practice in Oral Surgery. We have an agreement with Dr Vicki Ip to join us next summer. She is presently the Chief resident in Pediatrics at Childrens Hospital in Buffalo. We are desperately in need of several additional family physicians to join us (and soon). Because our need for physicians is so great we have had to limit the number of new patients we can accept at the Barton office. This past year we have only taken new patients who are refugees, pregnant or uninsured. We sometimes turn down 50-100 new patient requests per week. Because the need for medical services is so great here in Buffalo and the population we serve(especially refugees) is so underserved we have the goal to double our capacity to 60,000 patients in the next five years but this will only be possible if we can find more family physicians and excellent providers to join us here in Buffalo. Please pray for the right people to join us here and please spread the word to whoever you know that we are looking for more family docs to join us.
Our biggest challenge at JRFP is providing excellent medical care to such a diverse and underserved population and somehow doing it with limited resources. We need more doctors. We are pay check to paycheck with the finances. Many of our pts do not know English and their cultures are much different than our own and so it is a big challenge to communicate effectively. Getting our patients the medications they need, getting them to see a specialist or to the hospital for a needed test are all problems that sometimes seem almost insurmountable and yet God continues to be faithful and the providers and staff at Jericho Road are faithful on a daily basis and somehow in most cases excellent care is provided. We stand in the gap for an incredibly vulnerable community. We do this in the name of Jesus because we feel passionately that this is where Jesus would want us to be. Working with and touching the lives of the most vulnerable and poorest among us. This is our mission.
Our sister organization Jericho Road Ministries is growing. This non profit 5013C organization now employs over 40 people. Each month our programs touch the lives of over 2000 people. Many are patients of JRFP. Various programs help refugees find a job, interpret legal documents, get to a medical specialty appt, learn English, buy a house, learn to sew, mentor a pregnant refugee woman, help 7th graders with their homework and encourage women to open a checking and savings account. So many good people are now involved in some way with JRM and because of the faithfulness of many lives are being changed. This excellent organization is sustained through the goodwill and support of churches, individuals and multiple grants. Please continue to support this vital and growing organization.
In January Jericho Road Ministries will submit an application to the New York State Health Department to become an Article 28 medical diagnostic and treatment center. This application will take about one year and if successful will allow us to combine the Jericho Road Family Practice with JRM into one organization called Jericho Road Community Health Center. It would involve the transfer of assets from JRFP which Joyce and I now own to JRM. The Board of Directors of JRM would then own and operate this new entity. I would be employed by this entity. Though this is a big step for all of us I definitely feel it is the right one to take. Becoming a non for profit Community Health Center will bring us 2-3 times more money every time we see a medicaid patient (this is 70% of our practice) and will provide added resources for seeing uninsured pts. These extra resources will allow us to hopefully hire more family physicians, hire community health workers, social workers, provide much needed counseling services and maybe even dental services. It will help us afford translators for our diverse population. Our dream is to become the medical home for all new refugees who come to Buffalo and to see our Genesee office grow tremendously. This change will strengthen our ability to carry out our mission in the name of Jesus here in Buffalo. Please pray for us in this transition.
We have a dream to follow some of our refugee friends back to their home countries and support them to develop primary medical clinics there that will begin to address some of the tremendous health care needs in these countries. This year some of us will return with Phebian Abdulahi to visit her home village in Sierra Leone. This is our second trip. This time our goal is to do a 1 day medical mission in each of the four target villages and to identify land to buy for our first medical center and to identify several medical professionals from Sierra Leone who we can support to carry out the medical care longterm. Jericho Road wants to provide financial and technical assistance and work with the people of Sierra Leone to run these primary medical clinics. Our goal is to see a fulltime medical center begin operation in 2012 and provide medical care to 4 different villages. We are also talking with our friends from the Congo about a similiar project in that country. Someday maybe this model will also work in countries like Belize, Sudan and Ethiopia.
This week Nigesse Legesse (who has been my primary nurse who works with me at JRFP for 5 yrs) came to me with a request for a friend who has a sister who is very ill in Ethiopia. her doctor in Ethiopia told her she needed a 1 yr supply of a medicine called entecavir which is a medicine we use here in USA for certain serious medical problems. They wanted me to write a script for a one year supply. I did so and when they went to our local pharmacy to buy the medication for their sister in Ethiopia they were told the script would cost $20,000!!. Of course we were unable to provide this medication. So her friends sister will likely die. It reminded me of how screwed up our world really is. All of us are created in Gods image and deeply loved by the Creator and yet we live in a world where if you are poor or uninsured in this country or if you live in countries like Sierra Leone or Congo (to name just a few) you will die of diseases that are easily treatable. This is not what God intended. It is wrong. This is why I want to to see us begin to work in countries like Sierra Leone. We can make a difference and we must stand up and say clearly that it is wrong that people die just because they are poor. Our work at Jericho Road in Buffalo or in countries like Sierra Leone is a way to illustrate the love of Jesus to the most vulnerable. To build relationships, see peoples lives changed, see people find a lasting relationship with Jesus and to advocate passionately for justice in our health care system.
There are so many powerful stories that I hear almost every day at Jericho Road that detail the suffering, injustices, triumphs , successes and challenges of the people we work with. Each one is our friend. Sometimes the stories move me almost to tears. It is my goal to remember and document some of these stories in order to advocate for our friends. In order to challenge those in power and who have influence to make real change in the way the poor and the refugee are treated. I continue to pray that there will be a day coming (and soon) when all of Gods people everywhere will be treated fairly, have access to good health care, and have a hope for a better day for themselves and their families.
So anyway. I have gone on for a long time. For those of you who have been able to get through this entire email to this point let me ask you to say a prayer for Jericho Road tonight and in the days ahead...
Pray that God will bring more family doctors to help us with the work so that we can meet the overwhelming need.
Pray for continued financial resources for the medical practice and the ministry.
Pray for the transition to becoming the Jericho Road Community Health Center.
Pray for guidance and resources needed for the new work in Sierra Leone, Congo, Belize and elsewhere.
Pray that the day will come soon where all of the people in this world that God created will have access to good health care.
Pray that others will see Jesus in us and that God will be honored thorugh our work.
Thank God tonight for so many people who have given in some way to the work at Jericho Road and who are standing with us.
And finally I thank God for each of you.
Sincerely. Myron
12/26/10
Micah 6:8 |
posted Dec 29, 2010 1:28 PM by Brett Lawton [ updated Feb 14, 2011 10:04 AM ]Starting January 3, 2011, our Genesee Street office hours will be changing slightly. See below:
Genesee Street - Monday 8:00am - 4:30pm Tuesday 8:30am - noon Wednesday 8:30am - 4:30pm Thursday 7:00am* - 4:30pm (*1st Thursday of the month 8:30am - 1:30pm) Friday - Closed Saturday - Closed Sunday - Closed |
posted Dec 29, 2010 1:26 PM by Brett Lawton [ updated Feb 14, 2011 10:10 AM ]Starting Monday September 27, we will offer extended evening hours Monday through Thursday to be a better resource for our patients at their medical home. Our phones will be answered every evening from 5-8pm and we will accept urgent visits so that our patients will not need to go to the emergency room for non-emergency issues. Our home page will be updated with our new hours for the week of the 27th, but here is a preview: Barton Street - Monday 8:30am - 5pm with Extended Hours from 5pm - 8:00pm Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm with Extended Hours from 5pm - 8:00pm Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm with Extended Hours from 5pm - 8:00pm Thursday 8:30am - 5pm with Extended Hours from 5pm - 8:00pm Friday 9:00am - 4:00pm Saturday 8:30 - noon Sunday - Closed Genesee Street - Monday 8:00am - 4:30pm Tuesday 1pm - 4:30pm Wednesday 8:30am - 4:30pm Thursday 7:00am* - 4:30pm (*1st Thursday of the month 10:30am - 1:30pm) Friday - Closed Saturday - Closed Sunday - Closed |
posted Sep 13, 2010 11:33 AM by Brett Lawton [ updated Feb 14, 2011 10:12 AM ]We have heard from many patients that our experiment with not scheduling future appointments where possible so that we have sufficient same day appointments isn't working for them. Stay tuned as we reconfigure our system to better accommodate both advanced scheduled appointments and same day appointments. Please bear with us! |
posted Oct 8, 2009 7:28 AM by Brett Lawton [ updated Mar 5, 2010 2:28 PM ]Jericho Road Family Practice is experimenting with a new scheduling strategy... Starting October 5th, we are asking patients to call the week they would like to be seen for routine kinds of care and we will make every effort to get you in to see your doctor that week. We will still be scheduling certain kinds of things in advance, but we are doing this in an effort to try to meet your needs in a more efficient manner. For more information see the attachments in English and Spanish (en inglés y español). Update as of March 22, 2010 - we are modifying our scheduling change experiment and allowing people to schedule in advance again. We will provide for same day appointments in other ways - keep checking this website for details! |
posted Sep 22, 2009 3:40 PM by Brett Lawton [ updated Sep 22, 2009 3:41 PM ] |
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