When the Rockingham Free Clinic in Harrisonburg ceased operation at the end of 2020, and during a pandemic, local health care professionals stepped up to ensure those without access to healthcare would have their needs met. In April 2020, the Blue Ridge Free Clinic was established.
Overall, the clinic is led by a very engaged board of directors, but Susan Adamson and Lynne Eggert, both Nurse Practitioners with about 30 years of experience who worked together at the Rockingham Free Clinic, have provided the daily on-site leadership that helped to get the clinic up and running.
Today, Adamson serves as an administrative director and Eggert serves as a clinical programs director.
“When that free clinic closed, we and a group of others felt very strongly that there still was going to be an acute need for free health care services in our community,” said Eggert. “So, we all banded together and pooled our skills and energies to create the Blue Ridge Free Clinic.
Creating equitable healthcare solutions
When assessing community needs to determine what a new free clinic should look like, Adamson, Eggert and others came up with a three-pillared model, which included:
1. No barrier open access.
Many free clinics have paperwork, qualifying factors and other hoops to jump through before actually seeing a provider. But the Blue Ridge Free Clinic wanted to offer something that would allow patients to walk in and have their needs met.
2. An emphasis on navigation.
This focus is on guiding people to the resources and the places where they can have their health care needs most effectively met.
“Sometimes this means guiding people into the front door of a free clinic to determine eligibility, other times it’s guiding people towards a Medicaid application,” said Eggert. “We also take a very holistic view, looking at social determinants of health issues like food insecurity, housing, jobs and all the things that really pull people down and keep them from achieving their optimal health. We work to steer people towards local resources that will help meet these needs.”
3. Access to free or extremely low-cost medication.
The Blue Ridge Free Clinic has invested in software programs that will give providers access to donated medication programs through large pharmaceutical companies.
Independence offers a boost, but collaboration is key
Both Eggert and Adamson obtained their license to practice independently and without the requirement of a collaborating physician. In fact, Adamson was the first Nurse Practitioner in the state of Virginia to receive this kind of license.
“As far as autonomous practice, our independent license was probably one of the reasons it was possible for us to get up and running so quickly,” said Adamson. “We didn’t have to pass through any of the legal hoops of having a collaborative practice.”
While Adamson and Eggert have the credentials to be the decision makers at Blue Ridge Free Clinic, during our recent chat with them, the two emphasized one word repeatedly: collaboration.
“We don’t like to say the Blue Ridge Free Clinic is exclusively a Nurse Practitioner-run clinic. It’s a collaborative practice,” said Adamson. “We have physicians who practice here, but with a very different kind of partnership. They’re not our supervisors, and we help each other more with interdependence and interdisciplinary interests.”
There are physicians on the core board of the clinic who also serve as primary providers along with some Physicians Assistants. Having the independence to practice also helps to better serve patients as there is no need for charts to be cosigned. Adamson and Eggert also have the authority to create and change policies and procedures, creating a more flexible practice.
“Our main thrust is to be responsive to the health care needs of the community, and being small, flexible and really communicative with each other and with the community is really central,” says Eggert.
For more information about the Blue Ridge Free Clinic, visit www.blueridgefreeclinic.org/.