Other Paper Highlights Waheed’s New Free Health Clinic in South Burlington
Waqar Waheed, M.D., professor of neurological sciences at the Larner College of Medicine, is one of the founders of a new free health clinic in South Burlington that offers primary care, specialty consultations, and basic diagnostic services for Vermont’s uninsured and underinsured residents.
The Free Access Health Clinic at 400 Swift Street, open every Saturday, 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., operates on a non-profit model and describes itself as a community-driven solution to the state’s affordable health care crisis.
“We have a pulmonary lung doctor, cardiologist, infectious disease doctor, and we also have dermatology care,” Waheed says. The team operating the program includes 31 volunteer physicians, medical assistants, nurses, phlebotomists, schedulers, front desk staff, a practice supervisor, and board members.
The clinic is one potential solution to a common problem seen by many health care providers. When people delay or forgo basic primary care due to affordability constraints, many will likely end up in the emergency room, exacerbating costs and sometimes causing irreversible bodily damage.
“What could be prevented by seeing a good primary care physician and initiating all that primary care—all the preventative care never happened,” Waheed says. “So, the delay till crisis happened, then you have to restart from scratch and again.”
The clinic is not an emergency room or urgent care and operates on an appointment-only basis. While it’s free to visit, it’s common that patients require significant aftercare, like prescriptions or other diagnostic testing.
Waheed explains that to further aid with those costs, the team has partnered with the University of Vermont Medical Center and, if the patient fulfills the criteria determined by the center, then those aftercare steps, like receiving medication and additional testing, are covered by the center.
“We cannot cover each and every thing and we need to practice within our scope because we also know our limitation,” he says. “This is not a major hospital; this is a small scope. But the level of care you get in any physician’s office, we want to maintain that.”
While the clinic currently only offers care to adults, it plans to expand specialties as it grows, based on patient needs and volunteer availability. It has already announced that mental health and psychiatry services are coming soon.
The team is also accepting community donations at freeaccessclinic.org/donate/
“We’re offering more than free health care. We’re offering the opportunity for our patients to lead healthier, more fulfilling lives.” — Waqar Waheed, M.D.