A low-cost health care clinic in Goshen, Ind., has come up with a business plan that allows patients to pay for treatment with something other than money. At the Maple City Health Care Center, patients can help pay off their medical bills by performing community service.
Last fall, when the unemployment rate in Elkhart County, Indiana, topped 10 percent, clinic workers began noticing that patients weren’t showing up for appointments. Turns out they couldn’t even come up with a few bucks for an office visit.
So James Gingrich, the clinic’s medical director, decided to tap his patients’ skills and resources instead.
(Read or Listen at NPR News)
Photo from Robert Wood Johnson foundation website,
http://www.rwjf.org