4 Things You Should Know About Community Health Centers
Have you ever hesitated making a doctor’s appointment because you were petrified at the thought of your final bill? Have you felt helpless not knowing where to take your sick child or parent who has suspected diabetes?
If you said no, count yourself lucky. You might be in that majority of people who have some kind of insurance and a primary care provider in the United States.
If you said yes, you might be in that 10% of people who do not have insurance and rely on their own wallets to provide for their family’s medical coverage.
Regardless of which category you fall into, an alarmingly high percentage of people are unaware of what health centers, particularly Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), actually do for them and their communities.
Community health centers might bring about images of crowded lobbies with worn out furniture, grubby exam rooms, few clinicians to be seen, two hour long waits and so on. In a small number of cases, you might be right in envisioning these things. Most of the time, you’d be surprised at how incredibly inaccurate that depiction is.
As mentioned above, one of the most advantageous community clinics a population can have in their area are FQHCs. These clinics must fit strict requirements to improve the quality of life for their patients in order to be eligible to receive federal grants. They are non-profit or public organizations and provide a wide variety of services to underserved patients in the communities.
Even if you’ve never been a patient at one of these clinics, they do more good than you might ever know and a vital part of our communities.
Here’s what you should know:
1. They Make Healthcare Affordable and Accessible
Healthcare should be easy to find and reasonable to pay for. For patients who have insurance that covers very little of the cost or no insurance at all, community health centers are places for them to find needed services.
Depending on the patient’s insurance, they may be assigned to a particular community health center where their costs should be mostly, if not entirely, covered.
Many FQHCs offer fees based on a patient’s household income and family size. Depending on the location and operations of a center, this means a patient’s fee might be as high as $200 or even as low as $30. It varies from clinic to clinic, but regardless, these centers try to make a primary visit as fair and affordable as possible for patients who can now avoid unnecessary $2000 plus emergency room fees.
While they are not free clinics, they are definitely modeled to provide affordable healthcare to underserved populations without sacrificing quality. At FQHCs, no patient is ever denied care based on their inability to pay.
2. They Often Offer Integrated Care
Not all, but many community health clinics, offer integrated health, meaning you could see your medical PCP (primary care provider) and then make an appointment with your dentist on the way out. This is especially true for FQHCs.
A growing number of community health centers are offering much needed behavioral health services. If a patient scores high on a depression screening at the beginning of their visit or mentions to their provider that their mother just died, they could potentially be seen same-day with a mental health specialist to take care of their overall health.
For pregnant women or families with young children, there may even be a WIC (Women Infants Children) program affiliated with the health center that can provide nutritional education, assistance with groceries, or possible assistance with formula and diapers.
Optometry, women’s services and even some specialist care may be present at community health centers as well.
3. They Keep Costs Low for the Entire Healthcare System
How would a community health center make costs low for everyone? It really comes down to a trickle effect. Remember the afore mentioned situation of a patient going to the emergency room because they don’t know where else to go? This is just one of many examples of unnecessary spending in our healthcare system.
Let’s say a patient has uncontrolled diabetes but they are too afraid of raking up medical visit and medication costs. Maybe they aren’t even sure they have diabetes and are out of the habit of taking care of themselves. Before long, they may end up in the emergency room with a diabetic emergency.
These hospital costs end up being atrociously high for the patient…and this was a diagnosis that could’ve been properly managed a long time ago! Same goes for other unmanaged conditions such as asthma, high blood pressure or anxiety. These patients end up in the ER when the situation could’ve been prevented or better aided from preventive medicine at community health centers.
Of course the emergency room is there for a reason and is available to help, but it’s a huge step for the patients and these facilities to prevent these visits from happening.
It’s not just the patient who ends up feeling the cost! Continuous unnecessary visits to the ER mean hospitals spend more on their overheads costs, medical supplies, physician fees and other costs that drive up other costs within their organizations.
Sometimes facilities end up writing off part or all of these visits for those with financial needs, but again…that may lead to them eating these costs in other lines of their budgets.
You might think, “Heck, these big bad hospitals can afford to eat the costs.” Yes, sometimes they can and they will prepare for that. But the higher the number of visits and resources, the harder it’s going to hurt somewhere in the system.
Hence, the trickle effect. Someone somewhere is going to feel it.
The overall cost of healthcare is a topic for another day, but ultimately, hospitals and specialists appreciate these community health centers for being able to properly treat patients in need before things escalate to poorer health and higher costs.
4. They Provide Services to the Entire Community
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, community health centers were some of the first facilities to act to protect their underserved populations. Testing and vaccination sites could almost always be found at community health centers.
Local residents are often unaware that community health centers may offer services like flu shots to everyone in the area, not just their own patients (call your local health center to verify what services are offered to you as a non-patient).
Remember the above mentioned WIC program? Many potential participants incorrectly assume they don’t qualify for benefits, thinking they may not be below the set income levels. The WIC income eligibility standards are determined by each state and take many factors into consideration including an income range that doesn’t always necessarily mean you need to live below the poverty line. If you are an expectant mother or have children under the age of 5, reach out to your local WIC program to see if you qualify!
If you local FQHC does not have an attached WIC program, you can always do a quick online search to find out where else in your area the nearest services are offered.
You may not know all the names of the board members for these community health centers, but if it’s an FQHC, you can bet your money that the majority of these individuals are patients themselves. Having patients sitting alongside people like top C-Suite executives ensures voices are heard and patients’ well-being comes first. They know what it’s like to be a patient of the center and can provide valuable feedback to the leadership teams of the organization in regards to operations and policies.
…
If you are in need of a primary care provider or your family is uninsured, do some online research or give your local FQHC a call to see if you qualify and can make an appointment to establish care with a provider.
If you do not qualify, at least learn the names of the FQHCs in your area to be able to give a referral should the occasion arise within your conversations with friends, family, church members or other community connections you have. You may also have a chance to provide some much needed support to these clinics yourself in the form of volunteer work or fundraising activities.
Whatever challenges are impacting the healthcare sector at the time, you can also most guarantee that FQHCs and community health centers are feeling the blows double-time. However, these facilities are here to serve you and/or your neighbors, so be mindful of what they do for your community.
Communities only become strong by taking care of individuals, so seek the healthcare help you need and share your knowledge of these resources with those around you.
