You may be aware that if a person is facing a life-threatening illness, an Emergency Room will provide medical care to stabilize them even if they are uninsured or cannot pay. But what happens when a non-emergency comes up, such as child with an ear ache or a person struggling to manage a chronic disease like asthma or diabetes?

Many times, people facing hardships in life rely on the Emergency Room for all of their medical care. This causes a number of problems in our communities, such as decreased availability of ER resources for true medical emergencies as well as increased costs borne by all patients to cover the services used by those who cannot pay.

An often overlooked problem in this situation is that of the actual patient who is relying on the ER for routine medical care in the first place. The impact on their life is far-reaching – for example, the parent who relies on an ER when their child gets a routine illness might have to miss an entire day of work while waiting to be seen. The adult who only seeks medical care when they feel it is urgent enough to visit the ER might develop a serious chronic condition later in life that could have been prevented by seeing a medical provider on a regular basis.

Variety Care is focused on solving many problems facing those in our community who might otherwise not be able to access regular, routine medical care. We believe that the community as a whole is made stronger when everyone has access to the medical services they need, and the data backs up our mission. By making health care affordable and accessible, we strengthen our communities financially and save lives.