Free Medical Clinic to close Briceville site, will go mobile
The Free Medical Clinic of Oak Ridge will be closing its satellite facility in Briceville, but beginning March 11 will be shifting to using its mobile clinic in Briceville and Rocky Top on certain Tuesdays each month, the clinic’s director said Monday.
Billy Edmonds, executive director of the Free Medical Clinic, said that problems with the building the clinic has been using in Briceville since it opened in August 2021 are forcing the clinic to move out.
Although the clinic is still working out the schedule, the mobile unit will be setting up on some Tuesdays each month in the parking lots of the Briceville Library or the Rocky Top Community center, Edmonds said.
Since opening at 1456 Briceville Highway in 2021, that clinic had been operating every Tuesday. The building was being provided to the clinic by the Clinton Baptist Association, which leases the facility from the old coal company that still owns it, Edmonds said.
“The building has become a little bit unsafe for our staff and patients,” he said. “Heating and cooling are difficult, and we don’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars in repairs on a building we don’t own.”
The clinic opened the Briceville facility before it was able to get its mobile unit, and now believes that unit is a better choice to take its place, Edmonds said.
The clinic has also found that the demand for its services was lower than was expected in Briceville because “Briceville has a lot of residents on TennCare,” Edmonds said.
“They can’t use our services because they have insurance,” he said. “Rocky Top probably is more in need. Some people there are working and can’t get TennCare, but also don’t have any other kind of insurance, either.”
Through the clinic, free medical care is available to anyone without health insurance whose annual income does not exceed $24,800. It’s based in Oak Ridge, and is open to residents of Anderson, Morgan and Roane counties.
The permanent Oak Ridge location, at 116 East Division Road, is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., while a second clinic at 450 South Chamberlain Ave. in Rockwood operates the same hours on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Edmonds said the mobile unit now operates in Clinton at the Clinton Church of God 635 Hillcrest St. every Monday.
On Wednesdays, it’s set up at The Mission, 202 Main St., Petros.
And on Thursdays the mobile unit sets up at Mt. Zion Church, 195 Wilberforce Ave, Oak Ridge, in the Scarboro community.
Additionally, on the first Friday of each month, the mobile unit provides care at First Christian Church, 324 Morgan Ave., Harriman, in partnership with the church’s food ministry.
Mobile unit hours are 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at all locations.
The telephone number for the mobile unit is 865-483-4718.
According to the clinic’s website (fmcor.org), the mobile unit was paid for by a [Tennessee] Department of Health grant. Free Medical Clinic was one of five organizations across the state selected to get these units.
It’s 29 feet long, and has one exam room, a 10-foot awning, a bathroom, and full heating and air-conditioning. It can be plugged into a 20- or 30-amp power outlet. It also has its own generator.
It was built by Mission Mobile Medical, and is part of a three-year Tennessee strategy to increase community health services in rural and minority communities.
Schedules for the mobile unit may be found online at fmcor.org/mobile-clinic.