ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Eight counties in the Finger Lakes region collaborated on a survey to better understand how someone’s location and financial abilities impact their access to healthcare.

The health departments in Ontario, Wayne, Seneca, Livingston, Yates, Chemung, Schuyler, and Steuben want to know how often the people who live there go to the doctor, the dentist, a therapist — and whether that would change if it were easier and or less expensive.

“In rural counties, our fall back is always, ‘it’s transportation, transportation is the problem’,” said Kate Ott, Ontario County Public Health Director. “But the hospital systems in Rochester have moved out and they’re in our community. They’re in all our communities at this point, so I don’t think that transportation is maybe as big of a problem as it has been in the past.”

So what is?

“Things are different now since the pandemic, just different in general, with the types of health insurances that businesses are offering, large deductibles, and we thought there’s probably things we don’t quite understand about why people aren’t getting to the doctor,” Ott said.

They know they’re likely to get a lot of feedback when it comes to finding mental health care too.

“A lot of places do have waitlists and for pediatric mental health. We have, in Ontario County, no pediatric mental health beds so kids who need to be hospitalized. Their families have to travel,” Ott said.

The hope is they can use the information from the survey to convince health systems, insurance companies, non-profits to boost the right resources in the right places.

You can take the survey in English here or in Spanish here.

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