More Than Good Enough

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Back to Serving the Underserved

The Center for Health and Wellness, near Wichita, Kan., stands as testament to one woman’s commitment to providing quality health care to the underserved. It is the realization of nurse Arneatha Martin’s vision of what a health facility for the underserved ought to be.

“My idea was always that the health center could not be another storefront building that’s dark and dingy and where I wouldn’t take myself [for care],” she says. “My whole push has always been to only deliver quality health care that’s good enough for me.”

Martin emphasizes that in the push to deliver health care to underserved populations, providers should always take this “Is it good enough for me?” approach. “We should always ask ourselves that question when we deliver or develop health care facilities,” she says, “because too often what we’ve done is to build facilities that we, the people who are building them, won’t go to.”

The center provides a state-of-the-spirit open-access policy to uninsured members of the community. “Since we don’t receive any state or federal money, we don’t ask people embarrassing questions like, ‘Show me how much money you have.’”

In fact there are no inquiries at all into finances, earnings and insurance until after the initial treatment is provided.

At that point a payment specialist in a private area goes over the payment options with the patient. “We work with the people who have no insurance and try to make it as affordable as possible,” Martin explains. “We give them some [payment] options.”

One option is to pay by installments. A patient may agree to pay $20 every two weeks, for example. Other, more extraordinary payment options exist, as well. “They may say, ‘I have no job but I understand you have a children’s learning center. I could volunteer in there.’ Or the doctor may diagnose a person with out-of-control hypertension. They may opt to go to six classes on how to manage their hypertension. For each class they go to we could take $5 off of their bill. That brings their self-esteem back where it needs to be,” Martin concludes. “They can work on being more empowered.”