Gilroy’s first campus-based public health clinic is open for business, with reduced bills for students and school district employees.
The Foothill Health Clinic offers family practice medical services and health screenings, with optometry, dentistry and internal medicine coming soon. It opened at Glen View Elementary School on May 2.
“Anybody can come in,” CEO Salvador Chavarin said, underscoring the fact that it’s a community clinic open to anyone, including walk-ins without appointments, and not a students-only clinic.
The clinic operates on a no-fee or sliding scale fee depending on whether a patient has medical insurance and the kind of insurance. Most visits will cost $35 to $40, depending on the patient’s monthly income, he said.
Virtually all forms of insurance are accepted, including Medicare, Medi-Cal and Covered California policies, according to Chavarin.
Like many such clinics, Foothill charges patients for services not covered by insurance and co-pays will be payable when indicated.
However, for students under 18 and GUSD employees, co-pays will be waived, Chavarin said.
If a patient has both Medicare and Medi-Cal, there is no out-of-pocket expense for the visit, according to Lennis Estrada, clinic manager for Foothill facility in Gilroy. Medicare patients pay a $20 co-pay, she said.
Foothill already operates a clinic next door to St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and at several high schools in the Bay Area, including in San Jose. Its clinic at St. Louise is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 pm.
The new, 700-square-foot Glen View facility is housed in a portable classroom on the Eighth Street side of the Glen View campus, next to the Head Start preschool, roughly at the corner of Dowdy Street. It’s expected to expand into a second portable classroom for a total of 1,750 square feet.
It’s open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The four-person staff is expected to grow to 14 when a full complement of medical services is available.
Current staff includes physician’s assistant Ashley Mason and medical assistant Veronica Arellano. Jose Mendez is back office supervisor for Foothill’s Gilroy operations.
Plans to provide more medical services at Glen View are under review by the State of California, according to Chavarin and GUSD spokesperson Rachel Zlotziver.
“We expect that it could take several months for [the state] to give us the approval on the site plans so that we can begin the modifications to the classrooms,” she said.
In the meantime, Foothill can provide up to 30 hours of services a week, according to Zlotziver.
“We will be planning an event to officially welcome the community, most likely after the start of the new school year,” she said.
Initially the firm wanted to open on the campus of a Gilroy high school but the school board said no because there was no space.
Glen View is in an area of high poverty, with upwards of 95 percent of students on the free or reduced cost lunch program. School officials expect adults and students in the neighborhood all will benefit from easier access to health care.
Within two blocks of Gilroy High School and near the Eliot Elementary School attendance area, schools superintendent Debbie Flores has said the new clinic will draw students and families from both schools.
At Glen View, the clinic will be able to refer patients to medical specialists but will, at least initially, focus on a family medicine practice, officials said.
Although the clinic will serve students and adults from the community, the service delivery areas for children and adults will be separate, according to school officials.
