KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Starting Monday, Vibrant Health will assume operations of the former Children's Mercy West Cordell D. Meeks, Jr. Clinic at 4313 State Ave. in Kansas City, Kansas.
The new location will allow Vibrant Health to better reach under-served communities.
"There is a huge need for more access to health care in the county, and especially affordable health care. And so at Vibrant Health, we will see patients who are underinsured or uninsured, no matter what, we want to make sure that care is accessible. And so for their medical needs, to have even more options close to home, it's just really important that we can bring that to them, and then partner with companies like Children's Mercy Hospital who both have just, we have great missions to really help those in the community," said Kelsey Stines, Vibrant Health's chief of staff.
Vibrant Health will now have four total clinics in Wyandotte County, with a patient total exceeding 20,000 with the opening of the new location.
The clinic will be open Monday through Friday, with the first appointments available Monday at 8 a.m.
The State Avenue location will have six providers on-site, including a behavioral health specialist, dental services and a pharmacy.
"This is a great location it's really accessible to a lot of people, and there's also not a lot of other healthcare options in this immediate neighborhood. And so a lot of our patients may not have access to reliable transportation, or can only get somewhere if they're on the bus or riding with someone else, and so we want to make sure that we're in as many pockets of the neighborhood and throughout the county as possible, just to make it even easier for them to get care," Stines said.
The partnership with Children's Mercy allows them to better reach that community and provide ease of access.
"We had this in the works before the pandemic hit and we regrouped with Children's Mercy and said hey, let's just keep at it. Now there's no reason to delay for that, maybe even an argument to keep pushing forward, right? Timing was when we could get it done in a general sense, but we've been working on this for 18 months, and didn't want the pandemic to slow us down," said Vibrant Health CEO Patrick Sallee.
Last year, according to its website, Vibrant Health provided $2.3 million in uncompensated healthcare. Charitable donations help pay for the mission to provide equitable access to healthcare in the community, and if you're interested in contributing, you can donate online.
