Family Health Care providing Big Rapids with affordable health care

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Big Rapids Family Health Care physician assistant Heather Williams (left) and Family Health Care president and CEO Julie Tatko (right) stand in front of the Big Rapids facility.

The Big Rapids Family Health Care facility offers medical, dental and behavioral services.

BIG RAPIDS — Nestled next to the Water Tower Apartments is a health facility that packs a lot more than its outward appearance looks like.

Family Health Care has been in operation in Big Rapids since 2020, located on 730 Water Tower Road. Their one building provides medical, dental and behavioral care.

The organization began in 1967 in Baldwin. Over the course of its 46-year history it has expanded to six locations: White Cloud, McBain, Grant, Cadillac, Baldwin and Big Rapids.

The facilities alongside all Family Health Care locations are unique in helping people receive health care with limited or no insurance, having an open-door policy in terms of who can use their services.

"We are community governed. We are also here to serve, regardless of your health insurance status or ability to pay," president and CEO Julie Tatko said. "When people come in, we can help them get enrolled in insurance, and we also have a sliding fee scale. We're helping people get access to the services affordably, and the sliding fee scale can help if you only have coverage for one service but not everything."

The sliding fee scale applies to all services. Medical services range from checkups, sick care, and management of chronic conditions, with age ranges from pediatrics to geriatrics, according to physician assistant Heather Williams. The dental side includes checkups and restorative care such as fillings, crowns or dentures. Currently the dentist that they have is part time and only comes in once a week, thus they refer many to Baldwin or White Cloud.

The facility also provides behavioral health care to the community.

"In addition to medical care, we're providing behavioral health care, and that would be individual and group counseling services from mild to moderate," Tatko said. "We partner with community mental health, if there's something that's more severe or requires a higher level of care, we can do handoffs and referrals. But on site, we're doing individual counseling."

They also do treatment for addiction, helping individuals who are addicted to opioids in and around the area. This program sees patients weekly and usually involves a first time visit through a telehealth visit with Family Health Care's provider.

Outside of Big Rapids, Family Health Care has pharmacies at their location in Baldwin, White Cloud and Grant. These pharmacies operate under the same sliding fee scale and provide education on taking their products.

"A lot of older patients, especially when they're started on new medications, they have all these meds that they might not know, so our pharmacists will actually sit down and help educate them about what everything is for," Williams said. "They can put together calendar sheets and pill packs for some of our patients who may be struggling a bit. So, it takes all the guesswork out of it."

Across all the counties they are in, Tatko said they serve around 24,000 people total. Usually at the Big Rapids facility they see around 1,000 people per year, with an additional 100 utilizing the behavioral health service. Still, there are struggles that are faced when trying to deliver health care to as many people as possible.

"I think transportation is a huge struggle. Even with MOTA (Mecosta Osceola Transit Authority) you have to call in advance to arrange a ride." Williams said. "For a while during the pandemic, a lot of Medicaid plans would take people to appointments, but that shut down during COVID. So that made it even harder for people to access care. So that's where telehealth care comes in. But in this rural region, there's a lot of areas you don't get internet access to."

Alongside this, there is always a need to fill positions for health care providers.

"Another limitation that we've experienced with being able to meet needs," Tatko said. "Just being able to hire qualified staff has always been a problem, but there was a shift during COVID for where people worked and there was a lot of movement. We are involved in helping to train new practitioners, which is great work to be a part of. So, students rotate through our sites, and we can help with their training. But identifying dentists, physicians, even support staff who have the qualifications to come in and fill our jobs is a challenge."

When Williams transferred to Family Health Care, many patients who followed her were surprised by the facilities they provided according to Williams. She noted that there is a stigma that since Family Health Care is a Federally Qualified Low-Income Clinic the facilities would be bad.

"I think there's like a huge stigma but we have case nurses, just like a lot of other health systems do to help touch base with patients if they have a really complicated treatment regimen and we're having to make a lot of changes or they've been in another hospital like you can offer those services to we have those services," Williams said. "I think it was eye opening for a lot of my patients that transferred over here."

The Big Rapids location has big plans for the community's future, with a plan being put into action for expansion. The facility itself will have a basement added alongside expansion of the original facility. In addition to this, they also hope to expand their school-based services with two new school-based health centers located in Evart and Reed City schools and behavioral health services in Pine River and Cadillac schools.