Health Care: Most Community and Migrant Health Center Physicians Have Hospital Privileges.

Most CMHC physicians 82 percent have admitting privileges at area hospitals. According to CMHC officials, those that do not, often have not applied for privileges because 1 physicians prefer not to have an inpatient practice, 2 they do not meet a hospitals professional criteria, andor 3 the distance from the centers physicians residencepractice to the hospital where services are to be provided is often too far to allow for effective physician coverage of their patients. Furthermore, 29 CMHCs have no physicians with privileges. But, the lack of physician admitting privileges at a local hospital does not prevent CMHC patients from gaining access to inpatient care. Alternative means, such as referral to non-CMHC physicians with hospital privileges and to publicly funded hospitals, are used by CMHCs to help ensure that their patients have access to hospital services. Few CMHC physicians have been denied hospital admitting privileges because they failed to meet hospitals criteria. However, 42 CMHCs indicated that they employ one or more physicians who have not applied for privileges because they do not believe that they meet professional or other hospital criteria.