Medical

Temporary Relocation of White Bird Medical Clinic

by Savannah “Poppy” Marin

We have officially moved our clinic for the remodel that is being done at 1400 Mill Street. Our new location is 450 W. 5th Avenue. Our temporary space has one medical exam room and one behavioral health room for seeing patients. There are no walk-up appointments being offered at this time. While our capacity to see patients in person have been somewhat reduced, we continue to offer tele-med and tele-psych appointments in addition to in-person care and we have resumed accepting new patients who wish to establish care with a primary care provider.

We are looking forward to returning to the remodeled clinic! Post-remodel, the medical clinic will give us the opportunity to serve a lot more patients with the addition of a walk-in clinic. There are so many new possibilities for increased patient care on the horizon. We also have welcomed some new faces to the medical clinic staff, and are always looking to hire more!

White Bird Medical Clinic is not handling the scheduling or administering COVID vaccination shots. White Bird vaccination clinic is a separate team, operating at the WOW Hall. Please do not direct calls or questions about vaccination to the medical clinic, as it ties up our phones and interferes with patient care. Please refer those who wish to register for vaccination or have questions regarding vaccination, click here or call the vaccination scheduling line at (541) 246-2341. Thank you!

White Bird Medical Clinic provides compassionate health care to people who might not otherwise get care, treating all with dignity and respect. We offer quality health care to everyone on a sliding fee scale. 

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$100K grant awarded for a COVID-19 Care Center

White Bird Medical Clinic has partnered with Kaiser Permanente to develop a safe, COVID-19 screening and testing center for Lane County’s unhoused populations. The screening center will be located in White Bird’s primary care walk-in clinic, with construction planned to start February 2021. The new primary care walk-in clinic will offer on-demand acute care to our community’s most vulnerable residents. Without access to walk-in primary care, patients utilize emergency room treatment for acute but not emergent problems, reducing the availability of treatment for life-threatening emergencies.

In addition, treatment at an emergency room is at least five times more costly than a primary care encounter. With ambulance transport, emergency treatment becomes an order of magnitude more expensive than primary care. These dramatically increased costs, along with reduced availability of treatment for life-threatening emergencies, constitute a crisis for our community and the institutions that provide and fund health care. With your help we will continue preventing unnecessary emergency room treatment and subsequent hospital admissions and preserve healthcare system capacity essential for accommodating an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

When complete, the new facility will allow White Bird to quickly identify and respond to emerging health care needs, preventing the infection and spread of COVID-19 in people experiencing homelessness through symptom monitoring, screening, and testing. It will also enhance White Bird’s work coordinating care for the local population of unhoused individuals, strengthen partnerships with referring agencies and organizations, and support coordinating community efforts to suppress COVID-19. An additional benefit will be the capacity to conduct point of care testing for dental clinic patients, in order to keep dental staff safe and improve access to oral health care.

Also See:

White Bird Clinic to construct screening and testing center for unhoused – Register-Guard, November 2020

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Now Accepting New Patients!

In response to burgeoning community need, White Bird Clinic’s Medical program is now accepting new Medicare Patients! The clinic will be open Monday – Friday from 9am to 5:30pm. We can not take walk ins at our temporary location (450 W 5th St), however, you can contact us at (541) 484-4800 to schedule an appointment or visit https://whitebirdclinic.org to learn more about our services.

Medical has appointments available for patients who want to establish care or patients with a single acute need. There are same day appointments when available. We do have male and female identified providers. We take Medicare, Medicaid and offer a sliding scale fee, based on income for those without insurance. We do not turn anyone away for inability to pay for a visit!

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White Bird Clinic Expanding Dental & Medical Services

White Bird Executive Coordinator Miles Mabray (front) stands with Fund Developer, Chris Hecht, in front of the dental and medical clinic currently serving 2,000 low-income patients annually.
CREDIT TIFFANY ECKERT, KLCC

download press release

EUGENE, OREGON – White Bird Clinic will purchase the building at 1415 Pearl St. and redevelop it into a dental clinic to serve burgeoning community need. The existing dental facilities at 1400 Mill St will be renovated to add urgent care services to White Bird’s medical clinic.

The new building will allow White Bird dental to serve 50 additional patients each week and increase capacity to host student internships. The clinic will also provide denture care for elderly patients and allow White Bird to serve more children and families. White Bird medical’s new urgent care services will provide an alternative to hospital emergency room visits for patients experiencing an acute issue who lack health insurance.

“With the increase in community need for affordable urgent and preventative dental care, we’ve been on the lookout for a larger facility to better serve clients. When this opportunity came up, we knew we had to move on it immediately,” White Bird Dental Program Coordinator Kim Freuen said.

Founded in 1995, the dental clinic provides urgent care as well as preventative care. The program has continuously grown and is now constrained by its 23 year-old facility, and is not operating at optimal capacity due to a shortage of space. This year to date, the dental clinic has provided 4,848 visits for 1,992 patients:

  • 829 for emergency care;
  • 1,322 for hygiene/preventative care; and
  • 2,697 for restorative care.

According to Trillium Community Health Plan, many of their patients don’t ever see a dentist. The last two Community Health Improvement Plans for Lane County identified affordable dental care as a major issue. Poor oral health presents significant challenges for many unhoused community members; White Bird recognizes that need and meets it.

White Bird Medical Clinic provides affordable and friendly medical care to indigent, homeless, low-income, and otherwise marginalized populations, such as community members who are employed but uninsured or underinsured. In addition to staff physicians, there is a behavioral health consultant and a psychiatric prescriber who collaborate with the physicians to offer integrated, holistic care. This year to date, the medical clinic has provided 2,226 visits for 950 patients. 1,020 of those visits were with unhoused patients.

Providing primary care to patients is crucially important, as White Bird’s patients often suffer from multiple complex medical issues that are compounded by socioeconomic barriers to health care and lifestyle changes. These community members face significant barriers as well as discrimination when attempting to access health care institutions in the community, and having White Bird primary care providers advocate for them and coordinate their care is vital.

The new medical urgent care service will divert a great number of emergency room visits, which are very costly for all stakeholders. White Bird Clinic is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

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Valentine’s Day Flu Clinic

Show you care this Valentine’s Day by getting your flu shot. We’ll be offering free vaccinations from 1-3pm on Wednesday, February 14th at our offices at 341 E. 12th Avenue.

Look for us at the picnic tables out back.

Influenza (flu) is a seasonal disease that can cause mild to severe illness. Most experts think flu viruses are spread mainly by droplets when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk. Less often, a person might also get the flu by touching a surface or object that has the flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth or nose.

People can spread the flu even if they don’t know they’re sick. The flu can be more serious for some people, including young children, pregnant women, older people, people with certain health conditions and smokers. The best way to prevent the flu is by getting vaccinated each year.

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