RALEIGH
Wake Health Services plans to build a sizable new health center in Southeast Raleigh, nearly doubling the nonprofit’s capacity for patients in a part of the city where community leaders have long asked for better access to medical care.
The group already has begun work on the $13 million new facility on Rock Quarry Road, which will be the center of a network that could serve about 35,000 people in Wake and Franklin counties.
“Outside of the hospitals, it’s going to be the largest medical facility in Wake County, and it’s going to be in the heart of Southeast Raleigh,” said Adam Hartzell, development officer for Wake Health Services. “It’s going to happen.”
Wake Health is one of about three dozen community health centers throughout the state, many of which rely on federal grants for significant parts of their funding. The health center, a private nonprofit, tries to provide primary-care doctors for patients who often can’t find one, such as people who rely on the government Medicaid program. It relies largely on a federal grant and payments for treatment from Medicaid, which serves low-income people, and Medicare, for older people and those with disabilities.
The Wake County nonprofit aims to offer medical care to all comers, using a sliding-scale system to lower costs for people with less money.
Its goal is to provide reliable primary-care physicians. A family of four making about $24,000 per year would pay about $25 per visit in co-pays, according to Wake Health Services.
“There are a lot of primary-care physicians in this community … There are few that are willing to take Medicaid, Medicare, or the uninsured population,” said chief executive Penny Washington.
The nonprofit today splits administrative and medical functions in Southeast Raleigh between a leased facility on New Bern Avenue, near WakeMed, and the facility it owns at 1001 Rock Quarry Road. It will site its new 35,000-square-foot building next to its current Rock Quarry facility.
Wake Health Services will move four of its Southeast Raleigh practices into the building, including its pediatric and dental practices on New Bern Avenue, and its family health care and healthcare for the homeless programs on Rock Quarry Road.
The current Rock Quarry facility, meanwhile, will be renovated and used as office and community space. In all, the change will increase the nonprofit’s space for patients in Southeast Raleigh by about 65 percent.
The center, founded in 1972, gets about $3 million yearly from the federal government, drawing most of the rest of its funding from Medicaid and Medicare payments for care, along with some private insurance.
One-stop docs
A call-center team in the basement of Wake Health’s Rock Quarry Road facility coordinates care for about 25,000 patients, taking up to 800 calls daily. Employees at another bank of computers handle patient referrals to a network of about 20 specialists and doctors.
“We stay very busy,” said Marilyn Dorsey, director of the call center.
About a third of the nonprofit’s patients are uninsured, two thirds live in poverty and 1,300 are homeless or lack consistent housing.
Completion of the new building, which should come this September, will allow the nonprofit to add up to 10,000 more patients to its rolls over the next five years.
The goal for the new project is to bring more services into one building. For example, a county social worker might have a permanent station to help patients figure out Medicaid and other government programs.
The new center also will include a pharmacy, new equipment and community spaces. The city will build a new bus shelter in front of the practice, and the shelter in turn will provide bus passes and gas cards for some patients.
“We want to create a model that can be duplicated in other communities, in other cities,” Washington said.
Losing Rex Senior
Concerns about health care have played large of late in Southeast Raleigh, especially since news broke that a development proposal would displace the Rex Senior Health Center.
The Rex center stands on city-owned land, which Transfer Development has agreed to purchase and turn into a center for craft food manufacturing, among other tenants.
The potential loss of the center drew protest from community leaders. The developer, Transfer Development, reportedly won’t begin construction until the health center has a new home.
“The warehouse renovation is currently waiting for Rex Healthcare to decide on one of the alternative viable locations the City of Raleigh and our team have collectively found,” developer Jason Queen said in a statement released by the public relations firm Targeted Persuasion.
Wake Health Services, meanwhile is beginning a push for new attention both from potential new supporters and patients alike.
Elaine Peebles Brown will be on the front lines. She comes to Wake Health Services for care, but she’s also a member of the group’s Board of Trustees. (Half the board’s membership or more must consist of patients.)
When she’s not trying to get fellow church members into the doctors’ offices, she’s checking on construction of the new building’s metal frame.
“They think I’m crazy because I ride by just about twice a week,” said the retired city of Atlanta employee.
Outside the Rock Quarry facility, Brenda Willis Braswell and Katressa Baskerville waited on Braswell’s appointment.
It would be her second visit to the place, which she found after about six weeks of looking for a new doctor. Baskerville was considering joining too, to save her current drive from Raleigh to Knightdale.
Both women are ministers with Victory Gospel Chapel receive federal disability income. They’ve found it isn’t easy to find a doctor in Southeast Raleigh.
“It really isn’t,” Baskerville said. And “if it is, they ain’t taking Medicaid.”
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