Waukesha community clinic breaks ground Thursday
Waukesha - The new Waukesha Community Health Center, rising out of a partnership between the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center in Milwaukee and its federal grant and the Waukesha-based ProHealth Care and its Waukesha Memorial Hospital Foundation, will break ground on new quarters Thursday.
Medical services there are scheduled to start sometime next summer.
The clinic will be located next to the Waukesha Transit Center, in the former North Street Market at Barstow and North Sts. that has remained largely vacant since it was partially built in 2005.
The hospital foundation is contributing $2.3 million for site acquisition and initial operations. A $2.6 million federal grant made available to the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center through the Affordable Care Act is paying for completion of the unfinished interior and to join two separate buildings into a 15,000-square foot facility with 30 exam rooms.
Initially 12 people - three medial providers, nursing staff and workers to assist with insurance enrollment and to coordinate referrals - will staff the clinic. Eventually, the staff will grow to 40, including up to a dozen medical providers, spokeswoman Ellyn McKenzie said.
While the clinic will serve those with insurance of any type, it will also serve patients without insurance who will be billed on a sliding scale based on income and family size, based on clinic policy. A nominal fee will be assessed for all services, officials said.
The 30-year-old St. Joseph's Medical and Dental Clinic located a few blocks away on East Ave. in downtown Waukesha and which offers free services to the community's neediest people will still be in demand, said Jennifer Evans, executive director.
"There's more than enough business for both agencies," she said.
Both clinics will be an important part of the safety net caring for low-income individuals and they will work together, officials from both said.
The Waukesha Community Health Center will develop partnerships and referral arrangements with medical providers, government agencies and nonprofit agencies like St. Joseph's free clinic to form a continuum of care, McKenzie said.
While ProHealth and the Waukesha Memorial Hospital Foundation are helping to launch the clinic with financial assistance, the community health center will be operated by the Sixteenth Street agency.
Evans said the new health center is a welcome addition to serve a growing need.
"Soaring unemployment rates have added to the number of Waukesha County residents who have lost their employer-sponsored insurance and find it necessary to enroll in government plans such as BadgerCare and Medicaid," she said. "As a federally qualified health center, the new clinic will be well situated to provide basic medical services to this population."
But about 25% of those who seek medical or dental help from St. Joseph's - including the homeless - have no income and no government-supported insurance, she said. Another 27% of households, averaging two people, have annual income of less than $12,000.
"These are people who can't even afford the co-pays under BadgerCare," she said.
The staff at the Waukesha Community Health Center will be paid by the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center. More than 100 service providers at St. Joseph's are volunteers who donate their time. In 2010, according to the St. Joseph free clinic's annual report, the clinic helped about 1,200 people in the community with health care services valued at $860,000.
Most of the clients said if it weren't for the free clinic, they'd go without care or go to a hospital emergency room.
Correction: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article improperly attributed a quote from Jennifer Evans, executive director of the St. Joseph's Medical and Dental Clinic, located a few blocks away in downtown Waukesha. Evans was describing the new health center as a welcome addition to serve a growing need in the area.
"Soaring unemployment rates have added to the number of Waukesha County residents who have lost their employer-sponsored insurance and find it necessary to enroll in government plans such as BadgerCare and Medicaid," Evans said. "As a federally qualified health center, the new clinic will be well situated to provide basic medical services to this population."
