Free Clinic

A free clinic is a health care facility in the United States offering services to economically disadvantaged individuals for free or at a nominal cost. Core staff members may hold full-time paid positions, however, most of the staff a patient will encounter are volunteers drawn from the local medical community. Care is provided free of cost to persons who have limited incomes, no health insurance and do not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. To offset costs, some clinics charge a nominal fee to those whose income is deemed sufficient to pay a fee. Many free clinics offer services to underinsured individuals; meaning those who have only limited medical coverage (such as catastrophic care coverage, but not regular coverage), or who have insurance, but their policies include high medical deductibles that they are unable to afford. Clinics often use the term “underinsured” to describe the working poor.

Most free clinics provide treatment for routine illness or injuries; and long-term chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma and high cholesterol. Many also provide a limited range of medical testing, prescription drug assistance, women’s health care, and dental care. Free clinics do not function as emergency care providers, and most do not handle employment related injuries. Few if any free clinics offer care for chronic pain as that would require them to dispense narcotics. For a free clinic such care is almost always cost-prohibitive. Handling narcotics requires a high level of physical security for the staff and building along with more paperwork and government regulation compared to what other prescription medications require.

The modern notion of a free clinic began in the 1960s in San Francisco when Dr. David Smith founded the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics in 1967 during the summer of love in the Haight Ashbury district. Free clinics quickly spread to other California cities and the rest of the United States. In 1972 a meeting was held in Washington DC where clinic staff from around the country gathered and listened to speakers including Dr. Smith. At this meeting the slogan “Health Care is a Right Not a Privilege” emerged as a theme.

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Wikipedia