Health Care is broken. It’s more broken than most people can even imagine. If you’ve had the privilege of not needing care, you might not realize how hard it can be to get it when you do. Even if you are insured, healthy, and wealthy, if you live in western Massachusetts and aren’t a multi-billionaire, you still may struggle to find services near you and get timely care, let alone trauma-informed, patient-centered care.

In this disconnected swamp of private-equity and corporate profits, there is a little-known bubble of air. The Community Health Center of Franklin County (CHCFC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit primary care office, a federally qualified health center, right in downtown Greenfield and on the main drag in Orange. Community health centers (unfortunately) are the best kept secret in health care because we know every dollar spent on ads is a dollar that could have been spent on actual care. And we really care about patients. We don’t claim to have fixed the whole U.S. “system,” but community health centers are the least broken part of it. You may have seen notices from other practices about wait lists. CHCFC is taking new patients, and we take everyone. We are held to a higher standard for accessibility, quality, and safety. And we have a mission: to champion community health by delivering accessible, integrated health care, collaborating with patients and the community to improve length and quality of life, and emphasizing health care as a fundamental right for all.

Allison van der Velden

Greenfield