Winter Garden, FL – Community Health Centers, Inc. (CHC) Senior Vice President/Chief Financial Officer, Mark Dickinson, received an award from the Florida Association of Community Health Centers (FACHC) at their 2012 Annual Meeting. Mr. Dickinson was nominated by Barbara Snell, CHC’s President/CEO for the “Jessie Trice Outstanding Leadership Award”. This award recognizes an individual for their outstanding leadership contributions; who exemplifies visionary leadership in the local, regional, state, or national health center movement challenges the status quo to create new programs and services to meet the changing health care environment and collaborates to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes.
Mr. Dickinson was instrumental in leading the successful effort in Florida to change state rules that prohibited Medicaid payment for multiple services on the same day at Federally Qualified Health Care (FQHC) clinics. Aware of the myriad challenges these rules created for patients, including lack of transportation, time off from work and financial hardship; and that FQHCs in other states had helped their patients overcome these barriers by allowing multiple encounters on the same day. Mr. Dickinson’s commitment to educating lawmakers, generating data to backup FACHC’s position and his impassioned testimony before members of the legislature were critical to success. His dedication to bringing about this positive change will help millions of Floridians access the primary, behavioral and oral healthcare services they need for years to come.