What is NCAHA?

Mary was a working mother with no health insurance who was diagnosed with a congenital heart disorder. With bills piling up, she was coming to the point where she would have to decide between seeking care and feeding her family. Then she found out about Project Access and -- through the generosity of the medical community -- began receiving the medical attention she needed. Mary’s story is a familiar one and one that affects people across North Carolina. There are over one million uninsured residents in our state who depend on the work of access programs to get much needed medical care.

Communities across North Carolina have been serving the uninsured through physician and community organized charity care systems like BCMS Project Access, Physicians Reach Out, Healthcare Access, Community Health Link, Toe River Project Access, and Appalachian Healthcare Project, since the early 1990s. These Access Networks were each created based on physician donated care and their community's unique needs and resources. Although these programs operate differently in every community, they all have the same purpose, to provide healthcare access to low income medically uninsured people in North Carolina. In 2005, representatives from established Access Networks began discussions about how to help other communities create their own networks. Through the strong leadership of Senator Martin Nesbitt, the NC General Assembly provided funding in 2005 to begin the development of a state wide organization that assists communities in their efforts to create new Access Networks. In 2007, additional funding enabled the North Carolina Association for Healthcare Access (NCAHA) to become a reality.

NCAHA agreed to the following values:

    1. Access to quality healthcare for all people.
    2. Giving back to the community and celebrating healthcare providers and organizations for their compassion.
    3. Leveraging resources and caring for people in a high-quality, cost-effective way.
    4. Collaboration and creating networks and partnerships so that we may better achieve our goals.
    5. Excellence and seeking continuous improvement in all we do.
    6. Impact and measuring outcomes to ensure that we are making a difference.
    7. Advocacy and being a voice for those who do not have access to healthcare.

The long-term goals of NCAHA are many, and include:

    1. Establishing a statewide association
    2. Holding an annual statewide conference
    3. Encouraging new site development
    4. Defining and disseminating best practices and standards for North Carolina healthcare access programs
    5. Developing a system of public relations and communication with members and potential members
    6. Exploring and developing strategic partnerships
    7. Affecting policy related to NC’s low-income and medically uninsured population
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