Linn Community Care moves into new digs

A health center's move should open the door to care for more patients in need in the Linn County area.

Linn Community Care will celebrate the opening Monday of its new office at 1201 Third Ave. SE.

Patients were seen through Wednesday at the old clinic and will be seen first thing Monday morning before a two-hour break for the facility's grand opening.

“We want to celebrate, but we know what our real purpose is,” CEO Tashia Roffey Koebrick said.

Linn Community Care is one of just 13 Iowa community health centers, which receive annual federal funding and target patients at 200 percent or less of the federal poverty level. Such sites are key to national health goals of managing chronic illnesses rather than turning to more costly medical care, such as emergency-room visits.

Since Linn Community Care opened in November 2007, 27,528 patient visits have been made.

The patient schedule was maxed out at its old site, 855 A Ave. NE, where the office was consolidated after losing its primary site at 610 Eighth St. SE in last year's flood.

“We crammed everything there after the flood,” Roffey Koebrick said.

Mercy Medical Center demolished the Eighth Street building in February.

Roffey Koebrick said the goal in the new building will be 28,000 patient visits annually.

The size of the building helps, with 10,500 square feet and 21 exams rooms, compared with about 3,000 square feet and 10 rooms at the A Avenue site.

Another key to seeing more patients will be hiring more staff; three ob-gyns and two family doctors are scheduled to start in the coming months, and a psychologist will be hired to provide counseling at the new site.

The center also is staffed by the 22 resident physicians of the Cedar Rapids Medical Education Foundation residency program, a nurse practitioner and a social worker.

Medical director is Dr. Arvind Goyal.

Outreach conducted at His Hands Free Medical Clinic, 1043 Third Ave. SE, will no longer be done at that site, which Roffey Koebrick described as just a stone's throw from the new building.

Work with the homeless will continue at shelters and meal sites.

Some people confuse Linn Community Care with the city's free clinics. One difference is that federally funded centers are intended to be a medical home providing continuity of care and chronic care management, rather than episodic treatment, Roffey Koebrick said.

All ages are treated, with a sliding fee scale for people who qualify.

Ellen Ficchi, 67, of Cedar Rapids, pays just $10 for office visits and $20 for specialist appointments.

She and husband Nick Ficchi, 56, have gone to Linn Community Care

for nearly a year after moving from Tucson, Ariz.

“I'm finally getting some answers to what's going on with me,” said Nick Ficchi, who suffers from hepatitis C, arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, fibromyalgia and asthma. “They've been a lot of help.”

The new building is being leased from St. Luke's Hospital. Equipment and furnishings were paid through a $401,595 federal stimulus grant for capital improvements.

• Linn Community Care's new location is 1201 Third Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids. Phone: (319) 730-7300. Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. On the Net: http://linncommunitycare.org
• Grand opening celebration is 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday. U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is scheduled to speak at 11:30 a.m.
• An open house for invited guests, supporters, elected officials and others is 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday.
• An ice cream social for anyone in the neighborhood is 3:30 to 5 p.m. Friday.