Our Mission: The mission of our Centre County Partnership for Community Health is to support an inclusive, caring community that promotes healthy people and enhances quality of life through collaborative relationships.
Our Guiding Objective: To assess the health needs of Centre County residents and to develop outreach and partnering efforts that will bridge gaps in service and eliminate barriers to holistic health.
Centre County Health Care Access Overview
The text presented here provides a general overview of health care costs in Centre County. This information may be copied/shared freely.
Pennsylvania ranked 25th in 2005 among state health rankings (4). The state
spends $247.00 per capita on public health, which shows strong support for
this field. The United Health Foundation's Annual Report highlights the following
strengths for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:
- Increased per capita public health spending
- Increased immunization coverage (85.7%) for children ages 19-35 months
- ncreased rate of high school graduation (77.1%)
- Decrease in rate of uninsured population (11.9%)
However, health care access for the state's low income and uninsured population continues to be a dilemma. Since 1990, the state's rate of uninsured population has increased by 55%.
In Centre County, access to health care reflects some of the same characteristics shown by other county data - an anomaly created by the Borough of State College with its large population of students compared to the county as a whole. Within Centre County, the following areas have been designated as medically underserved areas (MUAS). These areas are designated as such based on infant mortality rate, number of people aged 65 years and over, poverty rate, and number of primary care physicians (1).
Medically Underserved Areas:
| Burnside Township | Boggs Township | Curtin Township |
| Liberty Township | Marian Township | Milesburg Borough |
| Millheim Borough | Snow Shoe Borough | Snow Shoe Township |
| State College Borough | Union Township | Walker Township |
The county also has several Health Care Provider Shortage Areas (HPSA) based on geographic location and the number of primary care practitioners in the area (1).
Health Providers Shortage Areas:
Geographic Location
| Boggs Township | Burnside Township | Curtin Township |
| Howard Borough | Howard Township | Liberty Township |
| Milesburg Borough | Snow Shoe Borough | Snow Shoe Township |
| Union Township Unionville Borough |
Population
| Philipsburg Borough | Rush Township | South Philipsburg Borough |
Centre County has no dental or mental health HPSAS.
As of 12/31/2003, (47,975) 33.87% of the county's total population had medical
insurance coverage through a health maintenance organization (HMO). The state
had (5,362,965) 41.93% coverage for the same period. These HMOs
included Medicare, Medicaid and commercial plans (3).
Medicare (65 yrs. & older) - enrollment as of 07/2003, Centre County had 14,409 aged residents enrolled in Hospital Insurance and/a Supplemental Medical Insurance. Additionally, the county had 1,822 disabled residents enrolled in the same categories.
Inpatient health care utilization among the county's residents totaled 3,175 for 2004 vs. 446, 629 for the state (2).
Inpatient Health Care Utilization by Insurer
Insurance Type |
Total Cases |
% Of Cases |
| Self Pay | 156 |
4.9 |
| Medicare | 1,304 |
41.1 |
| Medicaid | 242 |
7.6 |
| Commercial | 1,032 |
32.5 |
| Blue Cross | 404 |
12.7 |
| Other Government | 22 |
0.7 |
| Unknown | 15 |
0.5 |
| Total | 3,175 |
100 |
Outpatient or ambulatory health care utilization for Centre County in 2004 was 24,017 vs. 2,096,231 for the State (2).
Pennsylvania Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides quality health insurance coverage for children (birth - 18 years) whose families could not afford it or have no health insurance coverage at all. As of June 2006, Centre County had 936 children enrolled in CHIP vs. 143,501 for the State (3). CHIP covers regular check-ups, immunizations, well-baby visit, prescriptions, emergency care and dental access.
Act 77 of 2001, otherwise known as the Health Investment Insurance Act was enacted into law in June 2001 (3). This was an initiative designed to provide money to pay for health insurance for uninsured Pennsylvanians between the ages of 19-64 years. The program is known as Adult Basic. It offers preventative care, physician services, diagnosis and treatment of illness or injury, in-patient hospitalization, outpatient hospital services and emergency accident and medical care. The State has a current enrollment of 50,756 of which, 298 are Centre County residents as of December 2005 (3). There are currently 1,054 county residents in the program's waiting list for the said time period (3).
The Pennsylvania Insurance Department in conjunction with the Governor's Office of Health Care Reform (GOHCR) released a report regarding the health insurance status of Pennsylvanians in May 2005. Going to the link listed in the Reference section can access the report.
References:
1. Pennsylvania Department of Health http://www.dsf.health.state.pa.us
2. Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council http://www.phc4.org
3. Pennsylvania Insurance Department http://www.ins.state.pa.us
4. United Health Foundation http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org/shr2004/states/Pennsylvania.html
