New area clinic moves a step closer to reality

By Jim Bailey

The organizational meeting of a fledgling board of directors for a new area clinic was held Monday, May 9 at the headquarters of Northwest Wisconsin CEP. Now officially called the Bayfield County Community Healthcare Center (BCCHC), picking that name was the first order of business of the new 11 member board. The members of the official body were chosen by the CEP organization from among dozens of applicants drawn from the pools of potential patients and of healthcare professionals.

The upcoming treatment center is on a fast track due to a round of implementation grants recently announced by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration’s Bureau of Primary Health Care. Bayfield County is eligible for one of these grants in the wake of an announcement by HHS that identified that Wisconsin county as one of 200 Medically Underserved Areas in America. The new facility will be open to non-Bayfield County Residents, with special emphasis on serving the population of Ashland County. Furthermore, regardless of place of residence, all potential patients are eligible for service.

The new board of directors is comprised of Teresa Gunderson, Pat Sheridan, John Joseph, Mary Beth Tichow, Ruth Ritter, Reba Rice, Carol Anderson, Karyl Dewitt, and Amelia Lindsey. Slots on the board are being held open pending application by a members of the Red Cliff and Bad River Ojibwe Bands.

After approving a set of bylaws structured mostly by federal grant requirements, board officers were chosen. They are: Pat Sheridan, chairperson; Reba Rice, vice chairperson; and John Joseph, secretary/treasurer.

The board then discussed increasing the number of its members. This action was prompted by a federal guideline requiring that a majority of board members be from the pool of potential patients who will use the clinic’s services. Ancillary to that guideline is a further requirement that, among the minority of board members who will not be patients, less than half of that minority can earn their living as health care professionals.

Such a structure is designed to ensure that the facility be governed mostly by users of the service. Basic to the Bayfield County Community Healthcare Center’s mission is service to people who are uninsured, underinsured or of low-income status. Integral to this mission is a sliding-fee-scale that will, according to the patient’s status, pro-rate charges to partly or even completely reduce to zero the fees that patients must pay.

The increase in number of board members from 11 to 17 was decided by the board in order to allow for a balanced membership as per guideline requirements. After making that basic decision, a member of the public in attendance at the first board meeting, John Hamilton, was nominated for board membership and accepted on the spot.

Next, Joe Bresette of the Red Cliff Band spoke about concerns that the band has regarding the new clinic. He pointed out that there had as yet been no official tribal approval of the BCCHC. He also officially informed the board that a requirement of Red Cliff’s clinic exists which states that the nearest competing clinic should be at least 30 miles away from their facility. Red Cliff is one of only two tribal health services in the country that also serves non-Native people. They could potentially lose the funding that comes with that status if the proximity requirement is violated.

Because the new Community Health Care Center must achieve non-profit corporate status in order to receive the federal implementation grant, obtaining a mailing address was authorized by the board, who decided to get a post office box in Iron River. That town was chosen because it is fairly centrally located in Bayfield County. It is also one of several potential sites being considered for the clinic’s center of operations.

The board also received a report by grant-writer Dan Peterson of Rayven Technical Services. Peterson named some potential agencies that could perform contract services such as dentistry and mental health counseling until the BCCHC could fully expand the facility to include all aspects of its mission statement.

The board also voted in favor of continued status as fiscal agent by NW CEP. That function would be separate and distinct from the health care center’s patient billing operation. The latter would most likely be sub-contracted to a specialized firm.

The next two meetings of the Bayfield County Community Healthcare Center Board of Directors will be held on May 14 and May 21 at 5 p.m. at the Chequamegon Clinic located off of Ellis Avenue in Ashland adjacent to County Market. All meetings are open to the public.