FoundCare in the News:
RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — People in Riviera Beach now have direct access to affordable, quality health care.
Officials held a ribbon-cutting and grand opening at the brand-new FoundCare health center in the city.
The health center is located on the 3500 block of Broadway Avenue, right in the heart of Riviera Beach.
The 20,000-square-foot facility will offer a comprehensive range of affordable medical services, including adult and pediatric care, women’s health, dentistry, and behavioral health.
“We did some studies a few years ago and found that this area or the zip codes in this particular service area, were underserved and that folks were living to 69 versus 82. So, the life expectancy in these zip codes is a lot lower than that in the rest of the county,” said Christopher Irizarry, the CEO of FoundCare.
Irizarry said those statistics were a driving factor in why they wanted to build a new health care center in the city.
“In speaking to a lot of the residents, it's lack of health care. You know, the distance to travel, to go to different health care facilities, and really having to trust the organization that you're going to, to receive your health care,” Irizarry said.
The new facility is a game-changer, Irizarry said; 6,000 people from Riviera Beach currently travel to FoundCare’s other locations in the county, primarily Palm Springs, for health care.
“Access to resources and access to health care is vital for our residents. So for them to be within walking distance of a clinic and provide service and support to them in our community is going to be something that's necessary with us having an aging population, just having the third lowest median income in Palm Beach County, its going to be something that’s essential,” Riviera Beach Mayor Douglas Lawson said.
And even if patients can’t pay, they won’t be denied the healthcare they need.
“If a person has insurance, we take the insurance and we work with the insurance and we build the insurance. But if a person has no insurance, we place them on what's called a sliding scale based on family size and income,” Irizarry said. “We want the people of Riviera Beach to know, most important of all, is that this is their medical home, that they're welcome here, and that there are people in this world that love them and care about them, and we want to see them healthy.”
The center will begin seeing patients on Monday, June 23.
Coverage courtesy of WPBF. A special thank you to Jade Jarvis. See the original source here: FoundCare health center opening in Riviera Beach
