Reaching out with comprehensive care to the uninsured.
We call it the Ripple Effect: the way every contribution of time, money and expertise resonates throughout our community to improve the quality of our care and the lives of our patients. The focus of the RI Free Clinic (RIFC) is on our patients, but the fulcrum is our system of volunteers and contributors that provides free medical care to uninsured Rhode Islanders. At present, over 140,000 state residents live without health insurance, a problem that grows with every passing week. We provide the only free resource short of emergency treatment for uninsured Rhode Island citizens seeking comprehensive health care.
The RI Free Clinic provided more than 4,000 patient visits in 2009, offering patients primary care services as well as diagnostic and laboratory services and a free pharmacy. Most of our Broad Street clinic patients are residents of Providence and surrounding areas. Through our Physician Network, currently available in 17 communities around the state, patients see physicians in their offices and receive the same care and services as our Broad Street clinic patients, free of charge. All RI Free Clinic patients are uninsured. Nearly half (45%) are employed in jobs that do not provide health insurance, nor can they otherwise afford to purchase it.
The RI Free Clinic not only provides first rate comprehensive health care for its patients, but through its relationships with the greater network of Rhode Island’s healthcare community, we have also become an innovative and cost effective resource for medical education.
The RI Free Clinic is the only licensed ambulatory care facility in Rhode Island to serve the uninsured exclusively. RIFC draws upon a successful ten-year history of providing high quality, comprehensive primary care to adults between the ages of 19-64.
The Clinic uses a lottery to select patients, a system created to manage the overwhelming demand for health care from a steadily growing number of uninsured adults.
Want to learn more about our lottery system? Click here for a video of our February lottery featuring Julie Miller-Hendry, RIFC's Volunteer Coordinator. Click here for a video of our September 2009 lottery.
RIFC Board President Volunteers to Serve Patients
In a demonstration of his dedication to the mission of the Free Clinic, RIFC Board President Bernard Mansheim, MD, has begun volunteering one clinic a week. Dr. Mansheim has been eager to start seeing patients and has enjoyed directly serving RI’s most vulnerable population. Our volunteer physicians are an invaluable part of RIFC’s work, and Dr. Mansheim’s presence has strengthened our clinic and allowed us to see more uninsured Rhode Islanders. In his words, the “power of a physician volunteering is so great because we can increase the power of a clinic with just a small amount of our time.”
Bernard Mansheim has served as Board President since 2006. He received his medical degree in 1972 and completed graduate training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Brown University and Harvard University. We are so grateful that he has brought his time and talents to the Rhode Island Free Clinic.
