A free health clinic has been operating in the heart of St. Louis for many years, taking care of those with little or no health insurance. Long before Obamacare, fights over Medicaid expansion and long before mainstream health providers found it beneficial to their business model to embrace this group within their patient mix.
“We have removed the obstacle of money,” the clinic’s founder said.
Everything that is free does have a cost. And the person who perhaps has paid the highest price is the one who has led the work for 24 years to keep the clinic’s doors open, primarily without government subsidies. Founder Judy Bentley, RNC, MA is president and CEO of Community Health In Partnerships, or CHIPS Health and Wellness Center.
“The name Community Health In-Partnership Services was chosen because it was clear that we could not get services to people if we did not partner with the likes of community health centers, social services programs and hospitals, in addition to Rx Outreach and other medication programs.” Bentley said. “We chose to rebrand and use the name CHIPS Health and Wellness to indicate prevention and management of disease.”
Before founding CHIPS, Bentley worked as a board certified women’s health nurse practitioner. She received the charge to open the clinic from her parish priest, based on community needs expressed by three parishes and neighborhood residents following the closure of Yeatman health center.
“It was only with the concern of three pastors of three Catholic churches –St. Alphonsus the Rock Church, St. Teresa and St. Matthew’s,” Bentley recounted. “Those pastors at that time wanted to know what can they do, because folks were coming to their rectory asking for help that they knew they couldn’t provide.”
Bentley is a member of St. Teresa. After a series of meetings with pastors, health professions and lay people, the clinic started as an assessment and referral center in the basement of Saints Teresa and Bridget Church on N. Grand Blvd. in the Jeff-Vanderlou neighborhood.
“When he asked me, it was a challenge. But then, he had a carrot out there – he said ‘we have a benefactor who wants to build a building,’” Bentley said. “And that’s the building we are sitting in, that we have outgrown to an extent.”
That anonymous benefactor provided $50,000 in seed money for the CHIPS building, located at 2431 N. Grand. It shares a parking lot with the church.
She said, “I was challenged, but I also felt like ‘this is what God wants you to do.’”
All of the furniture and equipment is donated to the clinic – as is the time of most of its medical staff.
Bentley said CHIPS has a $1.3 million annual budget and operates on a mixed funding strategy, which also represents its greatest challenge.
“We do aggressive grant-writing; we do three fundraisers a year,” Bentley said, “and private donations.”
A small number of patients have Medicaid or Medicare, but the focus is on the uninsured.
Health services include internal medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, dermatology, asthma/allergy, chiropractic, dental and psychiatry.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit to our partnerships with UMSL-St. Louis Schools of Nursing and Optometry, St. Louis U School of Nursing and Public Health, Washington University School of Medicine, and Barnes Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing,” Bentley said.
The CHIPS staff includes about a dozen doctors who all volunteer their time, as well as four volunteer nurses. Administrative support includes the CHIPS business manager and grant writer, Herbie Bentley, a retired accountant and Judy’s husband.
CHIPS expanded its reach by taking health care out to the community through its Beyond the Walls program. Nurses have suitcases equipped with everything they need to test for blood glucose, body mass index, blood pressure, and they follow up with persons who have elevated ranges to get them to a doctor.
CHIPS also operates a selective youth program, to allow a creative outlet for talented, well-disciplined St. Louis Youth. They meet and at the adjacent church and have performed as far away as New York.
“We have teens from age 14 to 18 that we recruit from high schools and they are interviewed, auditioned and selected to participate in Club CHIPS,” Bentley said. “We train, mold them and focus on leadership skills, health care and theatrical performances.” The teens use those first two skills to teach their peers about prevention.
The CHIPS patient load experienced a dip with the Gateway to Better Health Demonstration Project enrollments and persons getting health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. CHIPS is a health insurance enrollment site. Bentley said it’s all about giving patients what they need.
“Last year we had 35,000 encounters with the combination of clinical and community services, but we have been up to 55,000,” Bentley said. “At the end of this year, we are probably going to see a 45,000 encounter. It’s coming back up.”
Even with health insurance availability and options under the Affordable Care Act, there are persons who don’t qualify for subsidies or don’t have insurance.
“There are still going to be people who are not eligible for any coverage,” Bentley said. “ACA was not intended to be universal health care.”
Those are people CHIPS wants to reach.
People with insurance have options.
Bentley explained, “We want to deal with the people who have no options.”
For more information, visit www/chipstl.org.
