“As hospitals, clinics and physician offices stare down huge Medicaid losses, with hundreds of thousands of patients set to lose coverage, many providers are considering the need to cut services and survive on less. Chicago-based Community Health is instead running toward the trouble by expanding.
The completely free-of-charge healthcare provider doesn’t take Medicaid, Medicare or other payment, so it is doubling down on a growth strategy to meet the expected influx of newly uninsured patients.
Stephanie Willding, CEO of the five-clinic organization, announced last week the organization is planning to triple its presence in the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood at a new Cares Community Center, being built by community services organization Onward House.
The new CARES Center, at 2644 N. Central Ave., will bring the free clinic together with Medicaid-accepting IWS Family Health for pediatric and family care, along with mental health services from Cicero Family Services.”