MetroPlusHealth opened its second Bronx community office at 25 East Fordham Rd. on Wednesday, July 31. The new location will offer health insurance and enrollment education, screenings and illness prevention workshops and mental health services information, as well as help with applications and referrals.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and Assemblymember Yudelka Tapia attended the opening ceremony and thanked MetroPlusHealth for supporting Bronx residents with high-quality, low-cost health care.
“MetroPlusHealth has been a longtime partner in our communities, providing quality and affordable care to our most vulnerable residents and [is] an invaluable asset in improving our borough`s health infrastructure,” Gibson said.
Rasheeda Petersen, associate director of sales for MetroPlusHealth Bronx offices, said it was a “no-brainer” to open a second Bronx location, as the agency identified a need to expand health care access in the borough.
“We’ve got the sickest individuals, whether it’s from asthma, high blood pressure [or] diabetes — anything that falls into an individual living in poverty we have,” Petersen said. “So it’s important for us to always be accessible to the community and that means being where they are and bringing them what they need.”
According to U.S. Census Data, 26.9% of the people living in the Bronx live below the poverty line, exposing individuals to certain health risks. The borough has the highest rates of asthma-related morbidity compared to the rest of New York City, according to NYC Health Department data. Additionally, an NYC Community Health Community survey found the Bronx has the highest prevalence of diabetes across all five boroughs.
MetroPlusHealth first opened a community office in the Bronx in 2018 at 959 Southern Blvd., serving South Bronx residents.
Roger Milliner, chief growth officer at MetroPlusHealth, said the new Bronx location aims to expand access and care to North Bronx residents.
The new office opens amid a growth in the number of New Yorkers MetroPlusHealth serves. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency served more than 500,000 members according to Milliner, and has grown since the Bronx first experienced some of the highest COVID-19 mortality rates in the country. The agency has also increased its membership due to the influx of immigrants to the borough and New York City, according to Milliner.
MetroPlusHealth partners with thousands of programs and resources because “the resources [individuals] need are always just healthcare related,” Milliner said. The agency’s current network includes more than 34,000 providers, 40 hospitals, 110 urgent care centers, and 500 local and national pharmacies.
“We may sign you up for health care, but what good is it if you have housing issues that are going on? Let’s say, for example, somebody needs a refrigerator because they don’t have a working refrigerator or somebody needs a proper bed, we’ve had these stories,” Milliner said.
Other organizations that MetroPlusHealth partners with work to ensure members have access to food, housing, and transportation. Petersen said the new office location will host partnered organizations to “bridge the gap” between organizations and individuals, increasing affordable care in the borough.
“There’s a lot of people who just think that healthcare is unaffordable,” Milliner said. they don’t realize that there are several different options to getting in care and so we have to continue to make sure that people are aware of the opportunities to get low-cost, sometimes free health care.”
MetroPlusHealth, a New York City-owned agency by City Health and Hospitals that offers health insurance to New Yorkers and partners with 34,000 doctors, specialists, and participating clinics across all five boroughs, currently serves more than 700,000 New Yorkers, according to the agency.
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