The clinic will provide care for more than 5,000 patients
- A Pawtucket health clinic has reopened to address Rhode Island's primary care provider shortage.
- The clinic will serve 5,000 to 6,000 patients in the next year with five new providers.
- Community health centers face growing patient loads and financial challenges, including low reimbursement rates.
PAWTUCKET – Blackstone Valley Community Health Center’s clinic at 42 Park Place has reopened, expanding access to primary care at a time when Rhode Island is grappling with a shortage of providers.
The clinic closed in 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, as the health center consolidated services at its 39 East Ave. location. In the years between, the facility served as a site for administrative work.
Five years later, the site is once again welcoming patients, thanks to the addition of five new primary care providers. In the next year, the clinic will take care of between 5,000 and 6,000 patients, according to Cristina Pacheco, CEO of the health center and a family medicine doctor.
“We’ve been really fortunate. We think that our message about really centering patients and patient care has been very attractive to PCPs, and some of it is luck and collaborations" with other health systems, Pacheco said.
Community health centers, which provide primary care for about one in five Rhode Islanders, have had their patient panel loads grow even as they face strong financial headwinds in recent years. In 2019, Blackstone Valley Community Health Center cared for about 19,000 people. By the end of 2025, its patient panel load will have increased to 25,000.
Pacheco acknowledges that part of Rhode Island’s primary care crisis stems from low reimbursement rates, which cascade into lower salaries and physician recruitment challenges. But she reckons there are other reasons for it.
“A big part of the crisis actually has to do with burnout related to either COVID or the sort of social justice issues around patients not being able to get the care that they need,” Pacheco said.
The General Assembly has tried to fix some of the issues facing primary care. Last legislative session, it raised Medicaid reimbursements, removing prior authorization requirements from primary care providers and addressing issues with a federal drug pricing program that is a vital source of funds for community health centers and other health care organizations.
While positive, these changes are not enough, said Pacheco. For example, the primary care providers from the community health center are still dealing with red tape from prior authorization, she added.
“We need to look at other ways to offload primary care and really value it and put it at the center of medicine because that’s what drives the rest of medicine,” Pacheco said.
Pawtucket, which is home to a large immigrant community, is in need of more primary care, she said, especially as private practices are closing and doctors are retiring.
The Blackstone Valley Community Health Center, along with other community health centers, recently launched the Molar Express, a mobile dental clinic that visits schools.
The clinic at 42 Park Place is also accepting new patients. People can call 401-722-0081 to schedule an appointment.