After 27 years of serving approximately 10,000 individual adult patients in the Staunton, Augusta and Waynesboro area, the Augusta Regional Clinic is no longer experiencing the need for its primary care services, and has decided to close the Medical Clinic on July 1.
ARC will now concentrate its resources and efforts on the crucial need for dental care by growing its Dental Clinic.
In making the decision to close the Medical Clinic, ARC’s Board of Directors emphasized its mission to provide health care services to those residents of our community who cannot otherwise afford access to care and its commitment to assisting if unmet medical needs are identified in the future.
The ARC’s ultimate vision for access to primary care has been met. When the Medical Clinic opened in 1993 at what was then Valley Vocational-Technical Center, there was almost no access to affordable primary care and prescription medications for the uninsured members of the community.
Patient numbers grew steadily to the highest average of 1,450 a year from 2009-2012, but when the Commonwealth of Virginia expanded Medicaid in January 2019, the ARC’s primary care patient population became significantly reduced. The ARC staff is in the process now of connecting the remaining patients with a suitable medical home.
Many of these patients have already been connected with an alternate resource for their prescription medications.
“We live in an area of the state where medical providers accept Medicaid insurance. Additionally, Federally Qualified Health Centers, which accept Medicaid and offer a sliding-fee scale, now exist in Harrisonburg and Lexington. They are especially convenient to Augusta County residents who live in the northern and southern parts of the county,” says Pamela J. Davies, the ARC’s first executive director and current board chair.
Patients can also connect to Augusta Health by contacting the Augusta Health Call Center at 833-AHC-HLTH for more information.
The Augusta Regional Clinic’s Dental Clinic accepts Medicaid and offers reduced fees for both adults and children. The Dental Clinic experienced a 30% increase in services from 2018 to 2019, and is in need of increased capacity to meet current requests for care.
The ARC is a (501)(c)3 non-profit organization which relies on donations from the community for its operation.
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Chris Graham
