Rochester Hills’ Crittenton Hospital Medical Center and hospitals in the St. John Providence health system will now provide services for veterans as an alternative to receiving health care through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Gwen MacKenzie, senior vice president of Ascension Health’s Michigan market, says qualified U.S. veterans who face wait times of more than 30 days at the VA or have to travel farther than 40 miles from their home can now receive care through Ascension Michigan.
Ascension Michigan includes Crittenton Hospital, St. John Providence, Borgess Health in Kalamazoo, Genesys Health System in Grand Blanc, St. Joseph Health System in Tawas, and St. Mary’s of Michigan in Saginaw and Standish). St. John Providence has hospitals in Warren, Southfield, and Novi, and East China.
“Ascension Michigan … (will) offer high quality, compassionate, personalized care to eligible veterans in Michigan through our participation in the Veterans Choice program,” MacKenzie says.
She says Ascension Michigan physicians are authorized to provide primary care, inpatient and outpatient specialty care, and mental health care for eligible veterans outside of VA. The Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 established funding to pay for health care services provided to veterans by private health care providers.
Nearly nine million veterans have received the Veterans Choice Card. MacKenzie says use of the card is voluntary. The program will end when the allocated funds of $10 billion are used or no later than August 2017.
IN RELATED NEWS, Medicare has announced it will fund diabetes prevention programs, including the National Kidney Foundation of Michigan’s My Choice … My Health program. The preventative program is offered across the state of Michigan, in locations such as West Bloomfield Township, Dearborn, and Taylor.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta estimates around 86 million adults, including at least 22 million people 65 or older, are pre-diabetic.
