Over a span of two hours, councilors tackled items ranging from endorsing legislation to approving a formal transfer of over $1.5 million to the city's opioid settlement fund.
Even before the meeting, one of the council's agenda items was brought up at-length during public speak out time.
Advocates for "An Act relative to primary care for you" called attention to the bill that was up for endorsement Monday night.
According to proponents like Duncan Daviau, a local physician assistant, it would address a growing trend across the state of patients struggling to find primary care, and often waiting months even when offices offer availability.
"Patients are not getting the care that they need because insurance companies continue to create roadblocks through the prior authorization process,” Daviau said. “And I've seen it play out every day in my clinical practice."
The bill would effectively double primary care investment in the region. As Daviau explained, it could also change the fee-for-service model into a "prospective payment model."
"That way, primary care providers such as PA’s, nurse practitioners and doctors no longer have to fight insurance companies to connect people to the care that they need,” he said. “What it does is it also indexes payments to the social determinants of health. So, we can address housing crisis, homeless crisis, food insecurity, and all these issues that are becoming emergency medical issues."
Also speaking Monday was Dr. Wayne Altman, a family physician in Arlington, Massachusetts, whose team put the legislation forward last year.
He also brought up research by the MA Primary Care Alliance for Patients, a group he founded.
Of the 23 primary care offices in Springfield MAPCAP reached out to, he said only 18 percent of the 164 providers working in them had availability for new patients. The earliest appointments would be 3-6 months off.
The council voted overwhelmingly to endorse the bill. The legislation was recently referred to the committee on Senate Ways and Means in early April.
Other items on the agenda included approving a $7.5 million Continuum of Care grant from the United States Office of Housing and Urban Development.
The funds are meant to promote ending homelessness and provide funding to quickly re-house homeless individuals and families, among other goals.
The council approved the item without issue.
Another big-ticket financial item on the agenda – having $1.5 million transferred into the city’s Opioid Settlement Account.
City Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris walked the council through the history of the funding that comes by way of the state, via opioid-related lawsuits.
Caulton-Harris said that while the opioid settlement funds were received in FY23, the city could not spend the cash due to what she called a “state-level” issue.
The funds were “not put in the proper legislative process,” however, in December 2023, cities and towns were then allowed to put the cash into special revenue accounts.
Caulton-Harris outlined some of what that money would cover, and some of the purchases made before it was finally made available.
“We purchased a mobile van for $210,000, there was money that was given to the TAC units for the fire department, and there was money given to the police department,” she said. “The city has spent over $400,000 so far, that it has not been, at this point, reimbursed for.”
Those vehicles, designed for community outreach as well as rapid medical responses, came at a time when the city had already seen a massive increase in overdose deaths.
Between 2014 and 2020, Caulton-Harris says, opioid overdose deaths in the city quadrupled, rising from 31 to 119.
While at the podium, the commissioner also highlighted efforts that have gone into developing an opioid response plan – something the funding can only help.
“This money is longitudinal funding - that means it's long term,” she explained. “We have a real opportunity here in the city to be able to put together a response plan that everyone sees themselves in and is important to this city.”
The transfer was also overwhelmingly approved by the council, with multiple members weighing in on the work being done.
Among them was Councilor Zaida Govan, who brought up how she lost her son in 2022 to an accidental fentanyl overdose.
She emphasized that talking about the crisis is a necessary step toward solving it, and referenced how her son, Curtis Dean Rodriguez, would often talk about the lives he helped save while working at Tapestry Health Services as a Harm Reduction Counselor.
“-and people don't want to talk about and because of the stigma - I'm really excited that the division of Health and Human Services is getting into this money and we're going to use it the way it needs to be used,” Govan said.
