THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290454
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Norfolk-based FHC Options, a company that manages mental health care, announced Thursday that it had won a $10 million contract to care for poor residents in two regions of Puerto Rico.
The company hopes the two-year contract will be a foot in the door to business in Central and South America.
``We're just exploring that. In the Central and South American countries, they are very tuned to Puerto Rico,'' said Judith Browne, chief marketing officer at FHC Options.
The contract is part of a large effort on the part of the government of the U.S. territory to provide more comprehensive health care to those who don't have insurance, Browne said.
Several years ago, she said, the government devised a plan to give health insurance to poor people. The plan is more similar to Medicaid in that it provides insurance to the poorest of the poor. But the Puerto Rican plan also includes people who have jobs but can't afford health insurance, Browne said.
To win the government contract, FHC Options teamed up with a large health insurer in the territory. The Norfolk company will handle only mental health and substance abuse services for about 350,000 people covered by the Puerto Rican company.
FHC Options will be working with a system that, until recently, handled mental health care in very traditional ways - mostly through hospitalizations and limited types of office visits to psychiatrists.
Browne said FHC Options will be using many of the less-traditional techniques that have had success elsewhere in the United States, including day treatment and intensive outpatient care. The company also will set up toll-free phone lines and walk-in clinics for quick help in emergencies.
This is not the company's first venture in the territory. Since 1987, FHC had owned a psychiatric hospital in Cidra, Puerto Rico. FHC also runs group homes on the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix.
If FHC Options does well in Puerto Rico, the company might use that success to sell its services to governments in Central and South America, Brown said. Like Puerto Rico, some of those countries are looking for ways to extend mental health care to those who don't have it, and to do it as economically as possible. by CNB