Community health is one of the cornerstones of ensuring that patients remain healthy throughout the year. However, finding access to nearby high-quality community health centers, walk-in clinics, and urgent care centers can be a challenge for patients.
Patients may simply not know what types of services they can procure from a community-focused health center, if they take insurance, or where they are located in relation to their residence/neighborhood. Once these factors are determined it provides an immediate healthcare resource for the whole family.
At AFC Urgent Care Denver Leetsdale, patients can access a wide variety of local health services that are fast, affordable, and efficient for most patients. If you have any questions about urgent care needs and community health services, please don't hesitate to contact the team and keep reading below! We'll have a lot of information to help you determine if community health centers are right for you!
What are community health centers?
By definition a community or privatized health center is any type of community-based or patient-directed health center that helps patients get the care they need by improving cost, geographic, and social barriers to necessary health care.
A community health center can broadly define any urgent care center, publicly-funded clinic, or an organization that helps to address complex social factors of health. For example, the Health Resources and Services Administration of HHS explains that some health centers can address gaps in primary care, preventive care, and even homelessness in specialized cases. Per HRSA, community health centers provide:
Deliver high quality, culturally competent, comprehensive primary care, as well as supportive services such as health education, translation, and transportation that promote access to health care.\
Provide services regardless of patients’ ability to pay and charge for services on a sliding fee scale.
Operate under the direction of patient-majority governing boards of autonomous community-based organizations. These include public and private non-profit organizations and tribal and faith-based organizations.
Develop systems of patient-centered and integrated care that respond to the unique needs of diverse medically undeserved areas and populations.
Meet requirements regarding administrative, clinical, and financial operations.
SOURCE: HHS and HRSA
What types of services do community-focused health clinics provide?
A community focused healthcare clinic can provide a wide variety of services for patients. Some medical offices specialize in primary care, urgent care, orthopedic, or pediatric care, but community health centers provide immediate need for a variety of medical fields.
The most common types of services seen at an urgent care center or walk-in clinic is acute injury or illness treatment. This means that patients can simply visit the community health clinic to get the care and treatment to relieve immediate medical needs. Medical needs in this instance include fever, cough, bruises, cuts, sore muscles, fatigue, and other sudden/minor ailments. Even though these issues aren't a medical emergency, it is important to get them treated ASAP.
On rare occasions community health clinics and urgent care centers provide primary care and even prenatal & sexual health services for patients. Specially-designed community health centers can address emerging community needs such as social determinants of health as well.
Patients that may not be entirely sure about the quality of certain health clinics, but the good news is that all of them must adhere to quality guidelines. These guidelines ensure that clinics are using the latest technology and staff the most qualified individuals to administer care.
However, it is important to understand that some community-focused health centers are either privately or publicly-funded. This may mean that some private urgent care centers may not take public insurance types while Medicaid/Medicare-funded centers cover certain costs. Conversely, a few private centers can provide a wider scope of professional healthcare services while public community centers may specialize in one or two fields.
The good news for patients in East Glendale or Aurora, CO is that AFC Urgent Care Denver Leetsdale provides easy access to community-focused healthcare facilities!
Patients in Glendale and Aurora can visit AFC Urgent Care for immediate care!
AFC Urgent Care Denver Leetsdale provides both a nearby urgent care center and local walk-in clinic to ensure patients get the community health services they need.
Anything from urgent care, to preventive care, is all available at our Leetsdale clinic near Aurora, CO and Glendale, CO. In addition, we also provide urgent care services for patients with Medicaid to provide services for all patients of all needs.
If you believe you need immediate community health services, then don't hesitate to visit your local AFC Urgent Care Denver location today!
