Help for Free Clinics
Column by Senator Dale Schultz

The Legislature can put a ‘Welcome’ mat at the door of community free clinics for many doctors, dentists, nurses and other health care providers willing to volunteer their services by enacting a bill I helped pass in the state senate on October 20th.

For many people with no health insurance and unable to afford out-of-pocket costs, free clinics are the only option for medical or dental care.

Free clinics are not the entire answer, but the bottom line is they serve hundreds of people that otherwise go without care. Free clinics don’t wait on government for an answer. They happen because of services and dollars given by local folks who care about their fellow community members.

We can all be tremendously grateful to the many community members who make free clinics a reality in Sauk Prairie, Dodgeville, Boscobel, Richland Center and other Wisconsin communities.

Free clinics depend on volunteer doctors and other health care providers. But volunteer providers must still have medical malpractice coverage to practice medicine. A state program called the Volunteer Health Care Provider Program (VHCPP) provides retired providers with malpractice coverage.

Working physicians and other providers often can’t afford to volunteer at a free clinic because doing so would increase their malpractice premium by up to thousands of dollars per year. The change I support would remove that disincentive for a working provider to volunteer at a free clinic.

Senate Bill 80 would add working providers to retired providers as “agents of the state” when they provide care as volunteers at a free clinic. I want to see the VHCPP cover all these providers: physicians, dentists, registered nurses, optometrists, physician assistants, dental hygienists, practical nurses, nurse-midwifes, pharmacists, dieticians, nurse practitioners, pharmacy technicians, chiropractors, podiatrists and physical therapists. For the unsung heroes among us, willing to give volunteer care above and beyond a stressful job, this is the least we can do.