Judith Cecilione's health insurance from her job hadn't kicked in yet, but the infection in her son Jonathan's 15- month-old chest didn't care. It demanded attention. Now.

"It sounds a little clearer from the back, but he's still a little crackly in his upper lobes. We should probably check him again before we get into the weekend," said Deb Chapman, a physician assistant, after listening to Jonathan's breathing sounds.

Jonathan was being examined at the Doctors Care Kids Clinic in Littleton, which treats children and young adults under 30 who are on Medicaid, Child Health Plan Plus or are uninsured.

Adults over 30 are cared for by more than 450 physicians who donate their services. Patients are responsible for a co-payment on a sliding scale, generally from 5 percent to 30 percent of their bill.

Doctors Care expects to treat more than 3,000 patients from Arapahoe, Douglas and Elbert counties, including more than 5,000 Kids Clinic appointments, by the end of 2005.

"They treated Faith (Cecilione's 3-year-old daughter) when she was a baby for a year when I was in retail and had no insurance," Cecilione said. "The whole amount was going to cost over $1,000 and they were very gracious to understand I didn't have the whole amount."

Her only other option "was to go into hard debt."

Cecilione paid $10 per child per visit for the care.

"You guys are great. We appreciate it," she said with a wave to the Doctors Care personnel who treated her children.

Most of the children treated by Doctors Care are under 5, said Chapman, the clinic's only full-time care provider.

"We do a lot of well-child checks and immunizations and see a lot of sick kids during the winter," she said. "We also see a lot of their parents up to age 30.

"A lot of folks, even if they're working three or four jobs between mom and dad, don't have the option of health insurance," said Chapman, who has been with Doctors Care full time for more than 18 months and volunteered every other Friday for a couple of years before that.

"It's a very rewarding place to be. Patients across the board are very grateful they've found someone to care for them."

More than $3 million of services will be donated this year by doctors, hospitals, labs and pharmacies that cooperate with Doctors Care.

Dr. Nancy Mitchell, a pediatrician, is one of more than 500 physicians and other health care professionals who donate their services to Doctors Care.

"I was real impressed with the clinic. This was a way for me to keep working. It's efficient, a very satisfying place to be," said Mitchell, who volunteers one day a week and more often during the winter.

"The clientele often don't have anywhere else to go. Because it's a relatively small clinic, you can develop a rapport with the patients. They feel like it's their medical home and not just an in-and- out emergency room experience. It's a little sad seeing more and more middle-class families that can't afford insurance anymore."

Visits to the clinic increased by 25 percent over 2004.

"We're going to see a rise in the medically underserved because employers are stretched when it comes to health insurance," said Bebe Kleinman, executive director of Doctors Care.

"We're stepping into people's lives that we would never have expected to be in," she said. "There are just so many more people who can't afford health care premiums that it has pushed working people into the medically underserved category."

Since summer, about 15 patients a week have been seen for mental health issues.

"We've partnered with the Arapahoe/Douglas Mental Health Network. . . . When those two pieces (physical and mental health) work together, the patient appears to move more effectively through the system," Kleinman said. "If we had the funds, we could do it every day full time."

Doctors Care

• Mission: To provide access to affordable health care through a coalition of health care providers to the medically underserved in south metro Denver

• Year founded: 1987

• People helped: More than 3,000 adult and pediatric patients in 2005

• Staff: 11 full and part time

• Volunteers: More than 500

• Budget: $650,000

• Web site: www.drscare.org

HOW TO DONATE

Post-News Season To Share, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, gave more than $1.65 million to 63 agencies serving children, the hungry, the homeless and those in need of medical care last year. Donations are matched at 50 cents for each dollar, and 100 percent of all donations go directly to local charitable agencies. The News is profiling agencies on Mondays and Saturdays that have applied for funding. To make a donation, see the coupon on Page 3D, call 1-800-508-2928, or visit www.RockyMountainNews.comor www.seasontoshare.com.

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