Mission

Project Access Dallas is about the life-stories of people who have received healthcare services through the generosity of our volunteer physicians and the donated services and funding received from our partners.

In 2002, the Dallas County Medical Society in collaboration with several community partners created a community service program called Project Access Dallas. The heartbeat of the program is compassionate care for our community’s uninsured patients who struggle daily with the challenges of poverty and who have no access to health care. The program is a network of volunteer physicians, partnering hospitals, community charity health clinics, and ancillary partners who volunteer to care for working poor patients.

Physicians, hospitals, or ancillary partners who sign up to volunteer in the program determine their level of participation by agreeing to donate their services to see a set number of patients per year. Patients are referred for enrollment in the program from volunteer physicians, partnering charity health clinics, and partnering hospitals. Because of the generous donated services of our partners, when a patient is enrolled in Project Access Dallas, he is assigned a primary care physician; receives $750 a year in pharmacy benefits; and has access to free specialty care, labs, ancillary procedures, care coordination, and inpatient hospital care.

Since Project Access Dallas began seeing patients (April 1, 2002), the program has steadily grown to more than 2,200 physicians, 17 hospitals, 14 community and charity health clinics, 10 ancillary service support organizations, two national laboratory service organizations, and more than 40,000 nationwide pharmacies. For more information, contact Cheryl Prelow, Vice President of Project Access Dallas, at 214-413-1435 or email cheryl@dallas-cms.org.


In 2012, PAD Will Provide Care to its 10,000th Patient
By Jim Walton, DO, MBA, PAD Medical Director

Each month I review requests from physicians seeking help for their uninsured patients And each month I find myself impressed by the compassion and concern that our colleagues show people who are in need. The notes below are from physicians as they applied to help some of their patients through Project Access Dallas:

  • “Needs Medical Oncology ASAP and Needle Biopsy of Liver Mass — DX: Liver Mass”
  • “Needs help with MRI costs — DX: Chronic Paroxysmal Hemicrania”
  • “Unemployed, spouse self-employed and can’t access insurance — DX: Uncontrolled Diabetes”
  • “Unemployed for over one year — DX: Uncontrolled Hypertension”

PAD exists to support Dallas County physicians as they care for some of the poor and underserved residents of our community. PAD provides every patient with:

  • A primary care medical home
  • Specialty care physician consultations
  • Ambulatory surgery
  • Pharmaceutical support
  • Care Navigation support
  • Laboratory and radiology services

This extensive list of services gives more than 2,000 physicians the confidence that they are not on their own when they choose to help those patients in their practices who can’t afford the health care they need. PAD is led by the DCMS board of directors and the Community Service Committee, which directs the PAD-dedicated DCMS staff as they provide services to over 3,000 Dallas County residents each month. In 2012, PAD will see the 10,000th patient receive care through the generosity of the Dallas County medical community.

PAD has altered the narrative of DCMS’ history over the last 10 years by the sustained commitment of the DCMS physician leadership and its volunteers. 2012 begins our second decade of service as healthcare reform continues to change the healthcare delivery landscape.

Thank you for your commitment and service. If you’d like to join your colleagues in PAD, contact Marilyn Haspany, PAD director of physician network at 214.413.1455 or marilyn@dallas-cms.org.