Brie Cohen, staff writer

A new card program will help the uninsured get service at Albert Lea Medical Center.

The number of uninsured hospital patients in the state has gone up in the past year, and Albert Lea is no different.

Three years ago uninsured patients made up 1.5 percent of Albert Lea Medical Center&8217;s clients, now it is 2.2 percent, hospital administrator Steve Underdahl said.

&8220;It&8217;s a pretty substantial increase,&8221; he said.

ALMC is a nonprofit entity serving people who are unable to pay for their care.

About 300 patients a year require financial assistance, costing ALMC about $1 million, ALMC Chief Financial Officer Dave Pilot said.

Because these patients don&8217;t have health insurance, they are less likely to come in for preventative care, like routine checkups. So when they do finally come in, they have &8220;catastrophic illnesses&8221; that end up being more expensive then if they did preventative maintenance on their own, Pilot said.

The costs for these patients are paid for by the insured patients. The rates of health care are set to offset the cost of the uninsured, Pilot said.

To help combat the amount ALMC forks over to help out these patients needing assistance, Pilot and Underdahl are planning to a card program called ALMCare.

Uninsured patients would carry the card to identify them as in need of financial assistance.

It would look like an insurance card, and the patient would present it at the time an insured patient would present an insurance card. The patient would pay an amount for their coverage based on their income and the hospital would pay for the rest.

Pilot and Underdahl said this care card would have a number of benefits.

ALMCare would be able to identify the patients that would need assistance in paying for their care ahead of time. This saves in cost because the hospital can help the patient apply for state health financial aid programs, which is something that has to be done early, rather than after their care has taken place. The hospital also doesn&8217;t have to spend the time and money trying to collect money from the patient. They would also be able to keep track of the patients and help them stay on top of preventative care.

Pilot and Underdahl also pointed out that it would give the patients more privacy, because the card would be discrete and unidentifiable to other patients, guests and doctors.

Pilot and Underdahl are hoping to have this program in place by this summer.

This program may be even more useful in the future if the number of uninsured patients continues to rise.

Pilot and Underdahl said there are a number of possible reasons for the increase.

Pilot said that health insurance has gotten more expensive. Some employers that provided health insurance in the past are no longer able to provide it or they have their employees pay more on their end, which has some employees opt out of health insurance.

Pilot also said that more young healthy people are taking a risk and are not willing to pay for health insurance.

&8220;They roll the dice hoping they don&8217;t get sick or injured,&8221; he said.

The future of health insurance makes Pilot &8220;nervous about our financial future,&8221; he said, because Medicare is running out of funds, which is something that 50 percent of their patients are on. Pilot and Underdahl said there are many different models out there with how to help cope with the cost of uninsured patients and they are hoping that this care card program will be just the one to help out ALMC and its patients.