Family Community Clinic:
Free Primary Care for Uninsured People – An Open Invitation for Referral of Patients and Seeking Clinical Volunteers
by Steven Lippmann, MD
Unfortunately, medical care in the U. S. is suboptimal. The cost is exorbitant, availability is restricted, millions of folks are without health care insurance and important parameters of quality have declined( like life expectancy). Lots of people are unhappy with their health care and the personnel there are stressed too, despite the fact that our national cost is much higher than for comparable countries. This sad situation also affects Kentuckians.
Fortunately, Louisville’ s Family Community Clinic( FCC) has for over a decade been delivering free medical and dental primary care in our region to persons who are uninsured and medically indigent. Service is provided cost-free to patients. We only serve people without any health insurance; that means that even Medicare and / or Medicaid recipients are not eligible to attend our clinic. Of course, there is no such thing as free care; in this case,“ free” just means that someone else supports the clinic by donating money and / or doing volunteer service.
The clinic is at 1420 East Washington Street, open at routine work hours five days a week, but closed on weekends and holidays. This clinic welcomes primary care patient-type referrals for people over 2 years of age. Telephone entry to the clinic can be done directly by a person and / or through a formal professional referral. All clinic visits are by prescheduled appointments, set by calling 502-384-8444.
As previously reported in Louisville Medicine, FCC was opened in 2011 because of medical service deficiencies in our region. To fill some health care gaps, the clinic was begun by Louisville’ s George and Mary Fischer family with Father David Sanchez and parishioners of Saint Joseph’ s Catholic Church. The intent was to meet local health care needs, and it increasingly is nicely recognized in our community. Seven years later, in 2018, a remodeled, modern purpose-built medical clinic was opened next to and provided by the church. Dental care was added in 2019. Most of the medical and dental equipment was donated.
FCC is a 501( c) 3, non-profit organization run by seven paid staff
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