In November, One Cross called CCHF|solutions to help with their transition from a private practice Christian clinic to a charitable model that can cross-subsidize health care to kids in rural schools. Recent state budget cuts caused county officials to cut the school nurse program. This would have required parents to take off from work or kids to go without care. Kimberly McKenna, CEO of One Cross Medical Clinic, felt called to step into this gap and provide a team of nurses to serve among three schools through a new program called One Cross Kids. The challenge came in this year’s enrollment because parents perceived the prior school program had been “free” and did not understand that it had been subsidized by county health patient visit reimbursements. CCHF|solutions facilitated ideas for a new awareness campaign and community outreach to increase enrollment for next school year and focus is now on communicating the various community benefits of healthy families.

Consultant Kacie McDonnell, a CCHF|solutions consultant, provided solutions that included: getting the state to designate One Cross’ service area as a medically underserved area based on census tract rather than county data and helping them apply for Rural Health Clinic status. These changes can result in higher reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid. Paul Wright, Director of CCHF|solutions, helped One Cross work through a business model tool that equipped them to think differently. They can now create a financial plan that gets support from local philanthropy and businesses for the school nurse program. At the end of the visit Kimberly McKenna said “Thank you for sharing your experience, love, and training with me and with my staff. There is no way we could possibly have gained the knowledge needed on our own.”

This type of project is just one example of how CCHF|solutions helps missisonal clinics. If you would like to learn more about our services and to have a free phone consultation click here.