Hope Clinic Inc.

“A family relationship exists between the board chairman and officer dr william martin and pam martin, chief financial officer and board member. Both are compensated employees of hope clinic, inc. Also their son, brian thompson serves on the board. He is not compensated.”

“The form 990 is prepared by an independent accountant an reviewed by the organization's top management. The reviewed form 990 is then forwarded to the board of directors prior to filing.”

“A conflict of interest statement is signed annually and reviewed by all board members.”

“The independent board reviews comparability data when setting and approving officer compensation. Documentation of the decision process is kept in the board minutes.”

“A single copy is kept in the front office and then if that is requested we replace it with another copy so there is always one available.”

“In addition to the above itemized items, our rn manager will prepare two surveys-one to be administered at 6 months and one at 12 months-- to measure the patient's perceived increase in knowledge and understanding of the processes to control chronic illnesses. We focus on chronic illness programs because our mission is not only to establish a medical home for a person who has been to the emergency room, but to give them the care and tools to prevent more emergency room visits.”

“Hope clinic is a christian, primary care/internal medicine practice with outreach to the uninsured,under-insured and uninsurable in gwinnett county, georgia and surrounding counties. Hope clinic currently sees patients from 39 georgia counties and 19 u.s. States. According to statistics from the georgia department of public health, "cardiovascular disease is the single leading cause of death in georgia, accounting for more than 20,000 deaths per year." * in addition georgia has a diabetic epidemic with approximately 14.2% of the adult population having diabetes (est 1,121,495 persons) statewide. ** gwinnett county is estimated to have 16,154 uninsured diabetics and 23,221 uninsured persons with heart disease. With the average cost of hospitalization for those diseases being $28,000 and $45,000 respectively per an occurrence, gwinnett's hospitals and emergency care services have an immense exposure to incurring the expense of caring for these persons at ambulance, emergency room and inpatient levels when both diseases are manageable in primary care/internal medicine office visits at far less expense. The most the emergency room can do with these patients is stabilize them in the er or hospitalize them if necessary. The patient will repeat the cycle of worsening illness and emergency room visits unless they establish with a primary care medical home and stabilize on medications to maintain control of the conditions. Reoccurring hospitalization will continue until a "medical home" can be established for the uninsured, a solid effort is made to educate them and there is continuous monitoring of their diseases. The hope clinic focuses on our chronic care management program for patients that have one or more major diagnosis. Per georgiawatch.org georgia ranks in the top ten states for citizens that avoid preventive care due to high costs and a lack of insurance. *** through our hope helps program for indigent, homeless and extremely low income patients who pay no more than $25 and our sliding scale fees offered to other uninsured patients of 30%, 40%, or 50% discount based on household income levels we can provide care that fits into our patient's budget. We already have greatly reduced prices on lab results and in house test that truly make needed labs and test to manage care extremely affordable at $65 and saves the patient thousands of dollars in comparison to the emergency room and hospital setting. The average a patient pays for a doctor's appointment $70. The hope clinic is always willing to make payment arrangements when needed. According to the above statistics regarding treatment at the hospital, the savings is remarkable, also preventing unwanted collections to those who are at a disadvantage. By helping the individual we help the family (which most often includes children) and the community. The poverty line for a family of four is $24,600. 78.9% of hope clinic's patients live at or below the poverty line. This impacts the hospitals and the community by reducing and preventing unpaid hospital and er bills which drive up the cost of medicine for everyone. The hope clinic currently has 4,500+ patients in the chronic care program with 3 providers seeing patients. "https: www.dph.georgia.gov/heart-disease(*) "www.main.diabetes.org/dorg/pdfs/advocacy/burden-of-diabetes/georgia(** "www.georgiawatch.org/wp-content/uploads/(***) we build relationships with every patient that comes to the hope clinic through keeping medical histories and by having the patient always see the same providers. We specialize in creating individualized treatment plans that cover all medical issues and diseases. The hope clinic is the only clinic in gwinnett with two full time employed physicians who see patients and directly supervise mid level providers making continuation of care seamless. Internal medicine doctors receive longer and a more extensive education in major body systems and are trained to treat the whole system and multiple diseases. Their”

“The process for oversight has not changed since the prior year. The organization's board of directors assume responsibility for oversight of the audit of its financial statements and selection of independent accountant.”