Mission
The Doctor Spot exists to provide basic medical services for children ages zero to 18 in medically underserved neighborhoods.
The Doctor Spot is a project of The LifeSavers Foundation, a faith-based non-profit organization which exists to empower and assist those in crisis. The LifeSavers Foundation is based in Richardson, Texas.
What is The Doctor Spot?
The Doctor Spot is a mobile pediatric clinic providing basic medical services to some of Dallas County’s most medically underserved neighborhoods. The clinic travels around the Dallas area to strategic “hot spots” such as schools, apartment complexes, strip centers, etc. to provide care to children on a regular basis in order to keep the community in good health.
The clinic is staffed with a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, a Bi-Lingual Medical Assistant and a Driver/Security person. It contains two examinations rooms, a lab and intake area and a restroom. It offers: Sick and Well Checks, Immunizations, Sports Qualifying Physical Exams, Vision, Hearing, Lead and Obesity Screenings, Asthma Management, Flu and Strep On-Site Testing, Laboratory Services, X-Ray Services, Prescriptions —the preventive services that children need to be healthy and thrive both at home and in the classroom.
The Need:
The pool of patients comes from approximately 71,000 uninsured children and 338,000 Medicaid enrollees in Dallas County. Of those, 25% live below the federal poverty level—exceeding the state and national average. Health is “…about making sure kids can…receive preventive health care and see a doctor when they need to across race, ethnicity, language or family income. Research suggests that access to reliable transportation is a significant barrier to health care, especially for low-income families. Missed appointments, delayed treatment and poorer outcomes are often results.” (CPPP: State of Texas Children 2016) The Doctor Spot is not bound by a physical address or a brick-and-mortar facility. Any site it visits automatically serves as a pediatric clinic. It transcends the transportation issue!
Many of these children will show up in a hospital emergency room, especially if they are Medicaid beneficiaries—more than one-quarter of these children are more than likely to have had at least one ER visit in a 12-month period than persons with private insurance. Conservatively, over 55% of ER visits are non-critical. With the average cost of an ER visit at $1233.00, the medical costs are staggering. TDS is ground zero in its efforts to prevent ER visits. Why not treat the same children for less than $200 per child including the professional visit, any lab or x-ray services and prescriptions?? It is an economic no-brainer.
The Answer: TELL US WHERE IT HURTS AND WE’LL BE THERE!!
The Doctor Spot provides free services for children of the uninsured and poor as well as Medicaid enrollees who, unable to find a doctor, will resort to using the ER.
Children are provided with a hub for basic medical services in their own neighborhoods.
No matter where The Doctor Spot is parked, it is at the center of good things for the Dallas community. Healthy children are more attentive students, less likely to spread illness in school and are less of a financial burden on the hospitals and communities that ultimately take care of the uninsured and poor.
ROI
What kind of return on investment can we expect from The Doctor Spot? The best benchmark is a 2008 study of a mobile health clinic sponsored by Harvard University. In terms of quality adjusted life years and estimated ER expenditures avoided, the study put the ROI at 1:14. In other words, that’s $14 worth of public health value for every actual $1 spent.