The health of Johnston’s poorest residents was in the spotlight last week as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse stopped by to talk to people about the need for attentive preventive care. A day after his visit, Rhode Island’s entire congressional delegation announced a multi-million-dollar infusion of federal money into struggling community action programs; Johnston’s Tri-Town Community Action Agency will get $250,000.

Whitehouse spokeswoman Alex Swartsel said the money is targeted at capital improvements, including electronic records – one of Whitehouse’s pet projects.

“[The CAP health centers] are pretty remarkable and this money provides extra resources for them,” Whitehouse said.

He came out shortly after he was elected in 2006 to stump for converting all health records to an electronic format – a time- and money-saver he said has paid off for public health clinics like the one at Tri-Town (it occupies the ground floor of the agency’s building on Hartford Avenue). Now, he said, his mission is to streamline the insurance claims process, which he believes is consuming far too much time and resources.

“The thing that stood out the most was when I asked about how efficiently [the health center employees] were able to deliver health care and how much of their effort was absorbed in fighting the paperwork battles of health care,” Whitehouse said.

In Johnston, at least, local initiative is paring that back to manageable levels, according to Tri-Town CEO Joe DeSantis.

A few years ago, Tri-Town decided to join forces with Comprehensive Community Action Program, Blackstone Valley Health Center and East Bay CAP and form a separate non-profit corporation to handle their billing. DeSantis, who serves as chairman of the new corporation’s board of directors, said the program was up and running about a year ago and has made everyone’s life a lot easier.

“For us it has saved a lot of time and a lot of money,” he said. “It’s improved collections … we can get where we stand financially in a much more efficient way.”

Therefore, the new money will be added into the $1.7 million the agency previously received to expand its health center – the only community health center serving uninsured and underinsured families in Johnston, North Providence, Smithfield and North Smithfield. The grant money – $995,000 for expansion and $730,000 for operating expenses – will enable the Center to double its space (adding six exam rooms to the existing six) as well as the number of patients served, plus add evening and weekend hours.

The grants came from diverse supporters including a $330,000 Congressional appropriation; $265,000 from the Champlin Foundations, $250,000 from the Department of Health Resources Services Administration; and $150,000 from the Bureau of Primary Care. The HRSA will also provide $650,000 annually for the additional staffing and operating costs associated with the expansion of services. The Rhode Island Foundation will contribute $80,000 in the first year to cover the cost of new evening and Saturday staffing.

The area Tri-Town covers is designated as a Health Provider Shortage Area for primary care, dental and mental health. More than 21,000 people there live at or below 200 percent of the poverty level.

“The support comes at a time when the need is skyrocketing and services have been threatened by cuts in state funding,” DeSantis said. “The grants will allow us to provide affordable, accessible care to thousands more infants, children and adults who would otherwise have difficulty accessing care.”

Tri-Town will also finally get its dental center – a new three-room dental suite. Presently no dental providers in the area accept Medicaid or RIte Care-insured families. The dental service is expected to provide access to more than 650 new patients.

The money will also cover behavioral health services. The Health Center will remain open during renovations, which are expected to be completed by Oct. 1.

Although DeSantis had not heard the details of Whitehouse’s “gatehouse” plan for health insurance – the legislation he’s been stumping for Capitol Hill, he said he is supportive of Whitehouse’s efforts in that area.

“I know he wants to reform the healthcare system, which I’m all for,” he said. “If more care is available to people who are uninsured, it keeps them from having to go to an emergency room. It also helps to prevent long-term illness”

The legislation requires health insurance providers to agree on a standard claims form and prior authorization requirements to cut down on the confusion that inevitably occurs when a single health provider has to work with multiple insurance companies, all with their own sets of rules, regulations and requirements. By creating a “gateway” through which to subsidize the costs of individual plans and route all the subsidized claims, Whitehouse believes the government can wield enough clout to force insurance providers to play ball under the proposed system.

“The incentive is they don’t get to see their product in the gateway if they don’t participate,” he said. “And because the gateway is where the consumer gets the subsidy, there will be a powerful incentive [for them] to buy their coverage there.

They lose the market if they don’t.”

Although the health insurance companies are likely to fight the gateway plan, Whitehouse said the battle over “public option” insurance is actually helping his cause.

“They’re so busy fighting about the public option I have heard less about the gateway than I would have expected. I think that we have the votes,” he said, pointing out the Senate is the place the bill would get bogged down, since the GOP there has been “filibustering everything,” a stalling mechanism that requires a 60-vote mandate to break.

The court ruling in favor of Democrat Al Franken, Whitehouse pointed out, gives him – at least on paper – the 60 votes he needs to push the bill through. But with Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy and West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd on medical leave, with Kennedy’s condition deteriorating, that 60-vote majority is tenuous at best.

“I still think we can do it; it’s just going to be more difficult than we thought,” he said.