CLAY COUNTY – The Way Free Medical Clinic and the Chamber of Commerce are looking to bring local employers and their employees into the fold of free healthcare.

Free healthcare may sound too good to be true, but that’s exactly what The Way Free Medical Clinic in Green Cove Springs provides to its patients. The Way executive director Don Fann said there’s a stigma with the clinic and free healthcare, but he says it’s not healthcare just for the homeless or for those with nowhere else to turn. The Chamber and the clinic are working to break that stigma so that otherwise uninsured, low-income employees without healthcare can get the medical attention they might need.

“Way@Work is a free medical care program for low income, uninsured employees of local businesses,” Fann said. “So many businesses can’t afford to provide insurance coverage to employees who are ineligible for benefits and this program outreached local businesses to enroll eligible low-income, uninsured workers into The Way Free medical clinic’s care before they become ill so that when they do need care, they’re already a patient.”

Way@Work is a multi-step program The Way plans to launch in January. It’s multi-step because adding hundreds of new patients at one time wouldn’t bode well for the clinic. So The Way and the Chamber of Commerce will work to bring the new patients onboard in phases.

Way@Work works directly with local businesses to pre-qualify workers for free medical care before they become ill, Fann said, and when it launches, it will be free to both workers and employers, and participating businesses will have the option to sponsor the program through a corporate donation, which is tax deductible.

After Fann and his team came up with the idea, they knew they needed to dig into Clay County's business community, and that meant bringing in the Clay County Chamber of Commerce and its president, Wendell Chindra.

“A crucial piece of Way@Work is getting businesses to buy into the idea and the program,” Chindra said. “The Way has been here doing good work, but Way@Work needs to receive some validation and collaboration, which is where we come in.”

Chindra and the Chamber will be working with its members to get them involved, and he said having the Chamber behind the program will help it gain more ground.

“I approached Wendell because I saw the potential and immense value of the partnership with the chamber,” Fann said. “Essentially, this is an outreach program so even though we may think there are say, 50,000 low-income, uninsured in Clay County, we don't know who or where they are necessarily. We do know many are employees in our local businesses though and the chamber’s extensive reach is just a perfect augmentation to this program for us.”

Fann said one of the greatest benefits of the program is the employees and their family will be able to receive free healthcare from the clinic. Beyond the immediate benefits of free healthcare and healthcare in general, Fann said employers will likely notice improved employee performance, attendance and retention.

One of the leading factors employees leave their job is benefits. If a happy employee doesn’t have benefits, they might leave their job in search of a job for health insurance. Way@Work will be there to bridge that gap, Fann said.

The program is expected to launch next year and as the months go by, more businesses will be brought into the fold.

“Employers at their heart would like to give as much as they could, including benefits, but financially, it’s difficult,” Chindra said. “Add COVID-19 to the equation and the word impossible definitely enters the vocabulary. With the addition of COVID-19 and everything we’re dealing with, I think the timing of the program is great.

“When Don first approached me about this, it sounded too good to be true and I felt as though by adding our name to it, it will validate it and take the possible lack of trust from businesses away from it. Timing is important. You could have the greatest idea in the world, but if the timing is off, it could fail. The timing could not be better for this and I’m excited for our local businesses to learn about this.”