Group's persistence results in Community Health Center

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The third time's a charm, as the saying goes, and that proved true for Advocates for a Healthy Community and the Community Health Center.|ret||ret||tab|

The nonprofit group has been meeting for more than 10 years, trying to improve access to quality health care for people in southwest Missouri. It went through a lengthy application process three times in the past nine years in pursuit of federal money for a community health center in Springfield. |ret||ret||tab|

Finally, after submitting its third application, the group learned in August it would receive more than $1 million to provide health care both medical and dental for those unable to afford it. The money comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.|ret||ret||tab|

The federally qualified Community Health Center of Springfield is scheduled to open later this year at an undetermined location. The health center will be the 16th such facility in Missouri, according to Brooks Miller, executive director of the clinical program of the Community Health Center.|ret||ret||tab|

"We went after the money because of the documented concerns that were here related to the need for the service to be established," Miller said. "It serves everyone. It's an open clinic."|ret||ret||tab|

The health center will take Medicare and Medicaid and will have an sliding-fee program for indigent persons who "slide through the cracks in the health care delivery system," Miller said. The sliding scale will take into account a person's income, family size and the federal poverty level. The center also hopes to be able to take private insurance.|ret||ret||tab|

Those who have worked for the past several years to see the center become a reality believe one of the most significant aspects of the facility will be the ability to provide dental care.|ret||ret||tab|

"In the past when (dentists) have tried to pick up the Medicaid dental patients, they have lost money," said John Rush, board member of Advocates for a Healthy Community. "You can be the greatest dentist in the world and altruistic, but you can't keep losing money every time you see a patient, and that's exactly the position they were under. That is about to end," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

The Community Health Center will employ a full-time dentist, dental hygienists, nurse practitioners and a full-time family-care physician. The hiring process is under way.|ret||ret||tab|

"Our intention is to address health and social services concerns related to low-income, underserved populations," Miller said.|ret||ret||tab|

Rush wants the health center to be a place anyone will want to utilize. "It isn't a free clinic. It isn't a part of either health care system (in Springfield). It is a community health center, and it's designed to serve everybody," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

Members of Advocates for a Healthy Community could easily have been discouraged after being turned down twice for federal money. But they persevered, meeting in the United Way of the Ozarks conference room to work toward something they felt was vital for this area.|ret||ret||tab|

The application process wasn't easy data had to be collected each time from local health institutions. "Cox and St. John's and public heath and everybody else who could pick up a pen and work overtime worked on this proposal," Rush said.|ret||ret||tab|

He believes it was the involvement of U.S. Sen. Kit Bond that made it possible for Springfield to have a federally qualified health center.|ret||ret||tab|

According to Bond's office, there are currently 23,000 people in north Springfield with critical health needs and little access to care. Greene County's numbers are even bleaker, it said, with nearly 35,000 on Medicaid, another 35,000 believed to be uninsured and 10,500 underserved.|ret||ret||tab|

Bond worked for a couple of years to secure funding for the Community Health Center. "After two long years," he said, "this vital health center is finally a reality for the community. Thousands of people will receive the quality care they need."|ret||ret||tab|

Several members of Advocates for a Healthy Community board are now part of the Health Collaborative. The collaborative is continuing other projects that Advocates for a Healthy Community was involved with, such as the tobacco education program, "Breathe Easy Springfield," and community health assessments. That group continues to provide a forum in which those concerned with community health care can get together and come up with solutions.|ret||ret||tab|

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