Lynchburg pediatric center to be one of a kind

No waiting room is planned for the new Johnson Health Center pediatric clinic under construction in 10,000 square feet of the Pyramid Health Center on Federal Street in Lynchburg.

“We’re calling this room not the waiting room, but the activity room,” said Dr. Peter Houck.

“We don’t want people to think of just waiting to see the doctor — they’re going to be having fun, educating themselves or socializing,” said Houck, Johnson Health Services medical director of pediatrics.

The finished clinic is already vivid in Houck’s mind. He can traverse the blueprints like he was looking at a family photo album, even though the dusty front room has the bones of the 1937 historic building visible and pale wallboard that only hints of future functions.

The former car dealership building in the 400 block of Federal Street doesn’t look like the setting of a specialty practice for children. The site’s also been home to Lynchburg Sheltered Industries as well as a bookbindery.

Just wait a few months.

By mid-October or early November, the not-quite-yet formally named clinic will open as the medical home to about 4,000 to 5,000 children in Central Virginia — whether insured, uninsured, underinsured, Medicaid managed care organization, military insurance, FAMIS or plain Medicaid.

FAMIS (Family Access to Medical Assistance Security) is Virginia’s health insurance program for children whose families don’t meet Medicaid income requirements. Medicaid, like FAMIS, is a state insurance program, but covers a lower income group.

Few clinics in the state have comparable numbers, Houck said, and that’s only counting the children on Medicaid and FAMIS.

Without the Johnson Health Center, the children likely would go to Roanoke or Charlottesville for health care, said Houck, because area general pediatric practices have virtually quit taking new Medicaid patients.

Johnson Health Services, a nonprofit community health center, can make a go of it where others can’t because such centers with federal grant status also get reimbursed at a higher rate by Medicaid.

The pediatric clinic will use about 80 percent of the site, with the other 20 percent designated as a clinic for obstetrics and prenatal care.

The Johnson Health Services programs will share the Pyramid Health Center with Centra PACE (Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly) which will occupy the other side of the building with comparable space.

Having the pediatric clinic in its own site frees offices at the Johnson Health Center, 320 Federal St., for on-going adult care.

In planning the clinic’s design, Houck and what he calls “three of the bright creative minds in Lynchburg” worked together to come up with concepts of what a pediatric clinic should look like: colorful, educational and entertaining for the children, and providing a bit of socializing for the parents.

The activity room will have specialized age-appropriate areas, including a teen section with teen-oriented reading material and educational DVDs.

The middle of the activity room will be a circle — a social circle — so that parents with babies or toddlers can put the children on the floor instead of holding a struggling child and also chat with each other. Appropriate materials for children of all ages will be available to the young patients.

The new clinic will have 12 exam rooms. Daily pediatric medical staff will see Houck, a pediatric nurse practitioner, or a family-practice physician on pediatric rotation from the Johnson Health Center.

“We have a different clientele with different social needs — we provide help that private practitioners can’t provide,” said Houck.

About 30 percent of the 2,600 babies born each year at Virginia Baptist Hospital become Johnson Health Center patients.

He uses as an example a mother who goes to the Emergency Department in labor but with no prenatal care and no insurance.

“We have a person that goes to the hospital and visits the mother.”

When the baby is born, he said, the Johnson Health Services employee is able to help her fill out the complicated Medicaid application form.

When she comes to Johnson Health Center with the new baby, he said, she’s already signed up for Medicaid and FAMIS.

“That’s something a private office can’t do,” he said. “We can get insurance for these kids and therefore they’re not going to grow up as frequent flyers to the emergency room. And they’ll have a medical home. “

Houck noted that Johnson Health Services also provides dental care for children and Project Read a literacy program that encourages adults and children to read.

“These are reasons why we can provide services for our kids that private practitioners can’t,” he said. “I think they’re better off coming here.”

The cost to equip the clinic is between $400,000 and $500,000. Grants from the community and gifts from private donors already have begun to come in.

The center receives a $600,000 federal grant each year, an amount that hasn’t changed since the clinic was founded, although patient charts have grown from 2,000 to 15,000 in that time.

The federal government is encouraging the community centers to seek community support and not rely solely on the government to finance a growing number of uninsured and underinsured people, Houck said.

Johnson Health Services is now publishing “Whirlwind,” a fundraising campaign newsletter. Whirlwind was the nickname for the late Dr. Walter Johnson, for whom the center is named.