The Community Care Clinic of Franklin is as important as ever during the pandemic, and the organization is taking steps to be more accessible to patients in need.
Cathy Stiles, the clinic’s executive director, said the clinic hasn’t seen a decrease in the number of patients seen this year. When the pandemic began, the clinic shifted all of its assistance to a telehealth model based on the Updox service, which they had access to through their membership with the North Carolina Association of Free & Charitable Clinics.
Now, the clinic is helping about 90 patients per month through telehealth compared to about 40 per month in their face-to-face clinic. This model not only helped the clinic keep up with the influx of newly uninsured clients in the spring but also became a valuable tool for patients with limited transportation options and time constraints.
“It makes things more flexible for people whose work keeps them too busy during the day or who can’t get out of the house,” Stiles said. “We’ve been able to take on a lot of new patients this way.”
Any fears of cutting clinic services during the current public health crisis have been put to rest. In fact, the clinic is expanding. In May, the clinic started offering a medication assistance service to help enroll clients in programs that can get them free and reduced-price prescriptions.
Ivonne Rios is in charge of medication assistance for the clinic and said the response among patients has been overwhelmingly positive because of the convenience it offers. Macon County Public Health has since begun construction of a dedicated office space for medication assistance practices.
“This way is a lot quicker,” Rios said. “They don’t have to drop what they’re doing and come to our office or even leave their houses. It’s a lot more convenient for many of our patients.”
Macon County Public Health director Kathy McGaha said the clinic has been an indispensible resource this year for making sure that Macon County’s most vulnerable citizens have access to healthcare.
“They’re definitely a tremendous resource for us,” McGaha said. “We have a lot of uninsured individuals in this area, so it behooves us to work with them to get those people some primary care.”
Grant funding has been an important asset for the organization in keeping operations going this year. The North Carolina Pandemic Recovery Office (NCPRO) allowed the clinic to hire a new provider in Izabela Lubinska-Welch, a nurse practitioner who is now performing telehealth and in-person visits for the clinic. Dogwood Health Trust gave the clinic $17,000 in an Immediate Opportunities and Needs grant to construct, furnish and provide medical equipment for the new office space in the health department building for well visit follow-ups from patients with chronic conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes.
Again, Stiles said that having space for these patients to use during the day will work wonders for increasing accessibility.
“We’ve had to do those visits during our evening clinics in the past,” Stiles said. “Now, we’re expanding that accessibility to the daytime. … This is solving several obstacles to care for our patients.”
Stiles said that it’s been rewarding to take on this year’s challenges and improve the clinic at the same time.
“With all of the people who have lost their jobs and their insurance, we’ve been catching a lot of new people who don’t qualify for Medicaid but who still need medical assistance,” she said. “It makes us feel like we’re doing our jobs and doing them well.”
For more information on services provided by the Community Care Clinic or to make an appointment, call 828-349-2085 or visit communitycareclinicfranklinnc.org.