First Presbyterian Church - Wausau Free Clinic Annual Report for 2023
This has been a remarkable and pivotal year in so many ways. It marks our first year in state-of-the-art medical facilities in the new Community Partners Campus. We hired our first full time clinic coordinator, Kim Shibilski, a Wausau native with training as an EMT-Paramedic. Kim had been a faithful volunteer for several years before joining paid staff. We hosted three AmeriCorps/VISTA workers during the year.
Our patient panel has grown to over 850 individuals. We now have reception coverage during normal business hours M-F, with providers seeing patients two days per week (Tuesdays and Thursdays). We provided over 1,400 patient visits, and greatly expanded the scope of care we provide. We can now offer a wider array of needed healthcare services, including provider visits, labs, medications, pathology, and some imaging. Labs, pathology, and imaging are provided pro bono by local area health systems and organizations. We even offer behavioral health services, both in-house and via telehealth. We have made arrangements for important consultation services in critical specialties, including: OB/GYN, Dermatology, Pediatrics, Cardiology, Pulmonology, Endocrinology, GI, Infectious Disease, Ophthalmology and Orthopedic surgery.
In addition, we affiliated this past year with two national charitable pharmaceutical organizations which supplied us with over $154,000 worth of free medications. As all services, we distribute these products at no cost to our patients. Our volunteer staff have logged over 6,600 hours of service. We now have 12 providers, 13 nurses, 8 pharmacists, 2 lab techs, 5 reception/registration staff, a registered dietician/CDE, and a transcriptionist as volunteers. We have four contract interpreters assisting us with non-English speaking patients. We continued our long tradition of providing medical and PA students from MCW and UW-Madison with valuable experience with a poor, uninsured population.
Our 2023 budget was $192,000, all generated by individual donations and generous grants from local foundations and city, state, and federal government sources. Our budget for 2024 is over $252,000. We estimate the value of in-kind donated services (not included in the budget figures) at over $673,500.
We are blessed to be able to provide such high quality, comprehensive primary care for our low income, uninsured guests. Our patient panel continues to be approximately 54% female, 46% male and 85% minority (70% are Hispanic). Approximately 40% come from Wausau, with the remainder from the surrounding area.
Our plans for 2024 are to finalize a long-range strategic plan, improve our social media presence and visibility in the community, expand our volunteer base, become more technologically capable, streamline operations, manage growth, seek new partnerships, grants, and donors, and achieve higher level accreditation from WAFCC and NAFC.