If you're one of millions who don't have health insurance or whose health insurance isn't adequate, there's now a place you can turn to to find all the available health and social services out there. Susan Jhun has more in the following NY1 For You report.

For 1.8 million uninsured New Yorkers, health coverage can now be just a click away.

“You can find a clearing house or resource directory of programs, service and organizations that can help lower-income, uninsured and under-insured individuals living in New York,” says Rima Cohen, Vice President of the Greater New York Hospital Foundation.

Hitesite.org, which stands for Health Information Tool for Empowerment, is a new free online directory of health services for the uninsured and under-insured. Funded by the Greater New York Hospital Foundation, HITE is the first of its kind.

“HITE is the first attempt to put all this information into one place in a very easy to navigate and easy to search database where you can search by zip code,” says Cohen. “You can put your zip code in, and a distance from that zip code that you're willing to travel. You can specify which medical conditions you need treated, and what languages you like staff the program or organization to speak.”

The directory, which is being tested in Brooklyn, northern Manhattan and an area upstate, is a valuable resource for the majority of lower income New Yorkers who don't qualify for public health insurance.

“The kinds of things you might find on HITE are mental health and substance abuse treatment centers, programs that can help immigrants apply for public health insurance, housing programs for lower-income people,” says Cohen. “We have free and low-cost clinics, hospitals, dental and optical services - a myriad of resources, the kinds of programs that lower-income, uninsured, and under-insured people might need.”

HITE is also helpful to professionals. Social workers say before the site existed, finding resources could involve a lengthy process. Now, it's one simple search.

“It used to take us probably more than an hour per person, and now it can take us as short as 15 minutes per person to help them get the health care they want,” says Tali Shnulovich, the Program Director of Health Insurance Enrollment Program & Bridges of Care Program.

HITE hopes to expand to cover the entire state by next year.

- Susan Jhun

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