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Health Center Gets Stimulus Money, New Home

By Beacon Staff

Over the past two months, whenever the temperature dropped, much of the Community Health Center’s dentistry equipment would freeze. Such are the struggles of dentistry in a bus.

Since late December, the center’s dental practice has been operating in a leased bus parked outside the Earl Bennett Building in Kalispell. Dr. Jennie Helm and a dental assistant have manned what is essentially a one-chair facility, treating primarily emergency patients. The rest of the center’s physicians and staff share space with other departments on the building’s first floor.

But with the help of the Flathead City County Health Department and federal and state monies, the center will soon have its own home and some much-needed funding.

“I don’t think anybody will be too sad to wave goodbye to the van,” Wendy Doely, the Community Health Center’s director, said.

Construction workers are putting the finishing touches on a new third floor for the Earl Bennett Building. When the addition is complete sometime early next month, the Community Health Center and the county’s Reproductive Health Services will take over the majority of the new space.

With about 10,000 square feet, the center and reproductive services will have nine exam rooms, four family planning rooms and five dental operatrories combined, Doely said.

In addition to its impending new space, the center received another big boost last week, when Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester announced it would receive a $1.3 million grant as part of the economic stimulus bill. Doely said the grant is certain, but that she hasn’t learned what its timetable will be, yet.

In a move Doely described as a “huge leap of faith,” the health department started the Community Health Center with its own money in late 2007 prior to knowing whether other funding would materialize. Soon after, the 2007 state Legislature granted the center an infusion of $1.29 million across 26 months to boost staff and equipment.

From the beginning, officials organized and operated the center along federal guidelines, in hopes that having the existing infrastructure would make the center more competitive for the federal funding needed to keep it running.

“They’re (the federal government) much more likely to invest in a health center that’s already operational,” Doely said.

The Community Health Center is open to everyone, Doely said, and operates much like a private family practice. There are 10 full-time staff members and the clinic hopes to add two more full-time employees this year.

However, the clinic also provides discounts to families who earn 200 percent of the federal poverty level or less. Fees are on an income-based sliding scale with a minimum charge of $10 for a general physician visit, $20 for teeth cleaning and $40 for dental work.

In its first year of operation, the center had about 1,950 patients who made approximately 3,600 total visits, Doely said, noting that the center only had two exam rooms for 9 months of that year. Of those patients, 71 percent were uninsured, and about 60 percent had an income at the federal poverty level.

“It’s all about access for these people who aren’t typically able to get medical care,” Doely said. “We’re absolutely meeting our target population.”

Furthermore, she added, those patients who do have insurance are often underinsured and carry such high deductibles that they’re hesitant to seek help. The need in dental, where the center is so busy it’s booked more than a month ahead, is especially high.

Before Kalispell’s Community Health Center opened the closest like clinics were in Libby and Missoula. The Flathead Valley was the last major population center to receive a community center, and several smaller towns like Cut Bank, Lewistown and Livingston had already opened theirs as well.

“The goal is to change people’s perspective of going to the doctor from something they do as a last resort to something they do to keep healthy,” Doely said.