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www.arlingtonfreeclinic.org

ARLINGTON, VA (June 18, 2009) - Arlington Free Clinic (AFC), with help from a $100,000 grant from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst), will implement a patient-centered model to facilitate optimum patient outcomes through an improved method of health care delivery.

The patient-centered medical home model focuses on physicians building partnerships with their patients to find the best path to effective and efficient medical care. Arlington Free Clinic is Northern Virginia's principal safety net health care provider and serves 1,400 uninsured residents each year.

The Arlington Free Clinic is a nonprofit, community based, volunteer driven organization committed to providing access to quality health care services to low-income, uninsured county residents. In FY08, AFC provided 8,600 patient visits, including primary care, specialty care, mental health, physical therapy, and patient education. AFC operates its own small licensed pharmacy. Two part-time staff pharmacists and over two-dozen pharmacy volunteers dispensed 22,000 prescriptions. More than 500 people currently volunteer at AFC, including 270 medical professionals, 170 are physicians.

Last year volunteers provided more than 14,000 hours of volunteer service. Seventy five percent of AFC patients have one or more chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, asthma, cancer, arthritis, thyroid dysfunction and/or obesity. About 75 percent of patients are female. All AFC patients have total family incomes at or below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level which is approximately $42,400 for a family of four. Arlington has an estimated 23,000 uninsured residents. On the Web: http://www.arlingtonfreeclinic.org.

In its 72nd year of service, CareFirst, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is a not-for-profit health care company which, through its affiliates and subsidiaries, offers a comprehensive portfolio of health insurance products and administrative services to nearly 3.4 million individuals and groups in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia. Through its CareFirst Commitment initiative and other public mission activities, CareFirst supports efforts to increase the accessibility, affordability, safety and quality of health care throughout its market areas.

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