THE BIRTH OF OLCHC

Operation Life Community Health Center was born within a year after the Nevada State Welfare Division complied with EPSDT legislation and submitted their state plan. Knowing that preventative medicine is a concept unfamiliar to the poor, OLCHC founders believed that only a community controlled screening center could assure success for the EPSDT program in Nevada. It was on the principle that black ex?welfare mothers could best administer a welfare program in the black community of Las Vegas, that OLCHC was born. Through their efforts, the non-profit OLCHC was established with the support of black and white health professionals. Although reluctant to enter into a provider agreement with the Health Center, the Welfare Division was forced to do so as the Health Center met all the legal requirements under the Medicaid regulations. The Welfare Division agreed to pay the Health Center only $32 per child screened, even though the Legislature had appropriated funds based on $35 per screening, and the Welfare Division's initial screening cost estimates averaged $97. The Health Center began screening children in August 1973. The Health Center is the only EPSDT screening center in the nation that is controlled by poor people. It is also the most successful screening center in the United States. Concerned that health defects in children be discovered and referred for treatment, the Health Center conducts an extensive outreach program. As a result, the Center screens more than 60% of the children receiving EPSDT services in Nevada. More than 1/3 of the children screened by the Center, are found to be in need of referral to other health professionals for treatment of maladies previously undetected. The work of the Operation Life Community Health Center has enabled Nevada to triple the national average of eligible children screened. The Nevada average is also thirty times higher than such states as California and New York. Representatives of the Health Center are regularly asked to speak at conferences of health professionals and federal officials involved in the EPSDT program. Additionally, Health Center representatives were asked by HEW to train state welfare officials at a regional EPSDT conference in San Francisco.