Expanding Access to Care

CCI’s Family Planning and Infectious Disease Programs

These last few years have been a difficult time for community health centers like CCI as political unrest surrounding reproductive care threatened funding and made many people fearful of seeking out care. However, our family planning and infectious disease programs saw this challenge as an opportunity to increase access to care and form new partnerships.

Through our family planning program and Title X services, CCI was able to provide care for more than 11,000 patients in 2022, a greater number of patients served than in previous years. This means more people received access to our quality care related to STI testing and treatment, pregnancy testing and counseling, cervical cancer screening, and birth control at a time when reproductive health services were being heavily critiqued in the media. This accomplishment is a direct result of CCI’s ability to form thoughtful partnerships to reach populations that are often overlooked.

One partnership that stands out is with Upstream, a nonprofit organization committed to expanding opportunity and increasing access to contraceptive care. Through this new partnership, CCI and Upstream will work together to better integrate our family planning services with primary care by providing training for our clinicians on patientcentered contraceptive counseling and overall patient education and awareness.

Additionally, our infectious disease department is leading the way in connecting patients who have been recently diagnosed with HIV to care.

With an over 90% linkage to care rate, CCI has been able to address many barriers patients face when seeking HIV testing and treatment such as lack of insurance and access to primary care. Close to half of all CCI patients use Medicaid as a form of health insurance, the largest source of insurance coverage for people with HIV in the United States.

As a community health center, it is our job to provide quality care for anyone who walks through our doors. That is why we not only accept private insurance and Medicaid but also provide care for those who may be without health insurance or are underinsured.

Through our partnerships and innovative outreach methods, CCI’s family planning and infectious disease programs are working together to expand access to care that reaches far beyond the clinical office space but also into the community. Our staff is often leading educational sessions at local high schools, engaging young adults through our Youth Advisory Board, and performing on-site services such as HIV rapid testing on college campuses. This is the CCI way and we’re proud to continuously do this work each year.

Campaigns with a Purpose: A Public Cervix Announcement

January marked Cervical Cancer Awareness month and CCI used this as an opportunity to launch our Public Cervix Announcement campaign to encourage patients to schedule a Pap test, the procedure used to screen for cervical cancer.

The campaign featured a play on the traditional American assembly, the pep rally except CCI’s Pap Rally was aimed at encouraging patients to come in on a specific day to get a Pap test.

To accomplish this, we identified a list of patients who were eligible for a Pap test and reached out to them by phone to schedule their appointment. Through this outreach method, our clinicians were able to perform 16 Pap tests!

When patients entered our offices, they were met with festive décor and educational material about cervical cancer. Our first Pap Rally was just a starting point, and we can’t wait to continue the tradition next year!