Deano Thornton, CEO of Trinity Community Health Center and former four-term mayor of the city of Winnfield, was the guest of honor and speaker at the February 28 meeting of the Winnfield Rotary club.
Mr. Thornton formed the Winn Community Health Center 19 years ago, in pre-Katrina 2005 with the mission of providing access to quality health care to all citizens of Winn Parish regardless of economic status. At that time, Thornton’s son had serious health conditions because of an auto accident. His treatment was so costly he needed the state’s Medicaid coverage, but the local doctors who accepted Medicaid insurance in payment of services were not accepting new patients so he had to go to Coushatta for his primary care.
Hence, the idea of forming a Federally Qualified Health Center took hold in Thornton’s mind. An FQHC is a federally funded nonprofit health clinic that serves medically underserved areas and populations. It provides primary care services regardless of the patient’s ability to pay, and the fee for services is determined according to a sliding scale fee based on income. This designation was obtained in 2009, and the local Winn Community Health Clinic was opened.
Since its opening, the clinic has expanded to four more parishes, and the name was changed to Trinity Community Health Center. With the expansion of Medicaid in Louisiana in 2016, Trinity added dental, mental health and behavioral services.
Trinity has over 40 school-based clinics with 12,000 students enrolled in the program. These clinics provide checkups, vaccinations, sick visits and transportation to dental visits for checkups and treatment at no charge.
Last year, TCHC treated 35,000 unique patients, 6000 from Winn Parish, 21,000 patients on Medicaid, 6,000 on Medicare and 1200 uninsured patients. It has over 300 employees.
TCHC’s newest project is construction of a three-story building to house all the services currently housed in multiple buildings. The first floor will house the pharmacy, pediatrics, primary care, behavioral health and radiology. Radiology is the only service not already being provided by the clinic. The second floor will house oral health services, vision health services, and physical therapy. The third floor will house administration, billing, finance, IT and medical records, along with a large meeting room and a commercial kitchen.
Financing is in place. It does not include any grants but has both federal and state tax credits for the investors, and some will be loans. Ratcliffe Builders has been selected as the contractor and the lead architect is Lisa Peddy with TBA in Alexandria.