Providing Health Care to the Uninsured

Based on a successful national model, Project Access leverages charity care from private physicians and other health care providers, ambulatory care clinics, hospitals, private diagnostic service providers, and pharmacies to provide streamlined access to donated care.

Download a Brochure

Article: Why Should Physicians Join Project Access? Details about this model which makes serving uninsured patients easy, organized, and equitable.

Article: Project Access – Giving Back at Home by Joseph B. Cofer, MD, FACS – JAN 2008 BULLETIN OF THE ACS

Project Access Multnomah County is in partnership with Project Access NOW, a regional collaborative effort in Clark, Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas Counties.

The Need

Community safety net clinics provide primary and acute care to low-income, uninsured residents of Multnomah County. However, when a patient is diagnosed with a condition requiring a specialist, their care hits a road block. The safety net is without the resources to provide comprehensive services, such as specialty care and hospitalization. While symptoms can be treated, a patient’s health invariably becomes worse, forcing them to the emergency department with a health crisis.

Project Access coordinates a process in which volunteer physicians and other health care providers are willing to care for patients as soon as their specialty health issue is identified. Patients are seen by a Project Access specialist to resolve serious medical problems rather than returning repeatedly to primary clinics to treat symptoms. This frees up more primary care access in our safety net system.

Eligibility Criteria

A referral into Project Access can only come from one of our participating safety net clinics. Patients must qualify with a written application and documents to verify the following:

referred by a participating safety net clinic

at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level

a resident of Portland Metropolitan area for at least six months

have no access to insurance

and have a demonstrated medical need

If you wish to enroll in the program, please go to
Patient Enrollment for more information.

Volunteer Physicians are Leading the Way

Already a Volunteer?

If you are looking for supporting documents or details about your participation, please go to:

Physician Volunteer Toolbox

“Physician practices are incurring avoidable administrative expenses related to treating [uninsured] patients…Physicians involved in [Project Access] realize that if the medical community as a whole contributed their services in an equal way, the burden on any one practice would be tolerable. Further, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the charity clinics would reduce demands on the private physicians.“ Read More

We are currently recruiting Medical Sub-Specialists. If you are a Primary Care Physician, or a Medical Sub-Specialist who would like to volunteer at a safety net clinic please view Safety Net Clinic Volunteer Opportunities Safety Net Clinics provide On-Site Specialty Clinics through volunteer physicians and other health care providers.

Yes, I want to join my peers in Project Access Multnomah County a collaborative and equitable community effort!

Download the Individual Volunteer Agreement

Download the Clinic/Group Volunteer Agreement

We are grateful for the many physicians who have been doing this work in some form over the past 20 years.

View our Valued Volunteer Physicians

A Volunteer Perspective

“Project Access allows me to do what I trained to do: take care of patients. While most physicians treat uninsured patients, doing so is challenging because they often can’t afford the medications we prescribe or the hospital based services they need. This program overcomes these barriers, thereby enabling doctors to concentrate on patient care. My experiences with the Project Access team and the patients have been uniformly positive. Together we’re helping fellow Oregonians in a caring and efficient manner. While the government and others may solve health care accessibility and affordability problems in the future, many patients need help today, and Project Access is providing it.”

Katherine Morris, M.D., Surgical Oncologist

Medical Director

We are grateful for the contributions of Dr. Morris, who not only sees patients, but also volunteers as our Medical Director.

Katherine Morris, M.D., Northwest Surgical Oncology