North Country Cares (NCC) is a community-based care coordination program that helps community members who are uninsured or underinsured access essential health care services through a community-wide sliding fee scale program.

NCC also provides Care Coordination services that:

• focus on wellness and prevention, working with clients to improve the client’s health status;
• provides education to help client’s learn how to access the appropriate level of care at the appropriate time;
• allows clients to enter the system at any point, providing enrollment information only once; and
• provides support with referrals and follow-up as the client moves through the system.

The initial NCC pilot program is being implemented in Berlin. The program is available to individuals who:

• live in the Berlin Health Care Service Area (Berlin HSA);
• need assistance to access the health care system appropriately;
• need assistance to focus on wellness, prevention and improving their health status; and
• need assistance navigating the system and/or are a client of many local programs and services.

The NCC fee scale program is available to individuals who:

• live in the Berlin Health Care Service Area (Berlin HSA);
• lack health insurance, or
• have a high insurance deductible (>$500 per person or $1500 per family of 3 or more);
• do not qualify for NH Medicaid;
• do not qualify for Medicare;
• need financial assistance for essential health care services provided by NCC participating providers;
• agree to the sliding fee scale and any payment plans developed as part of the client’s plan; and
• participate in the NCC care coordination/education program.

NCC will refer children (up to age 19) to NH Healthy Kids. Children will not usually be enrolled in NCC.

The key to the long-term success of NCC is to make it self-sustaining. The Consortium proposes to use the considerable expertise it has gained through the development and implementation of NCC to create a sustainable program by:

• documenting dollars saved through appropriate use of facilities and services which can be turned into dollars to support and sustain the project. (Project Emanuel in rural Georgia is a good example of a care coordination project, which was able to turn dollars saved into actual dollars contributed by participating providers to sustain the project.);
• continued grant writing efforts;
• providing technical and management services to other networks interested in developing care coordination models, and by
• raising awareness about the need for reimbursement for care coordination.

The Consortium plans to expand NCC into additional Hospital Service Areas (HSA) in the North Country during year two of the project.

North Country Cares
179 Cole Street, Berlin NH 03570
603-752-1035
Fax 603-752-2458
cares@nchin.org