title: Free clinics: a national survey.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the scope and value of services provided by free clinics across the United States.
  
  
  METHODS
  Mail survey of directors of free clinics registered in the Free Clinic Directory of the Free Clinic Foundation of America, November 2001, concerning the calendar year 2001.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eighty two percent (281/355) of clinics responded. Seventy five percent of clinics described their target population as the "uninsured" and 23% as "low income". Fifty five percent had income based eligibility criteria of 200% Federal poverty level or less. Clinics provided a mean of 5,989 patient visits/year and 11,202 prescriptions/year to 2,311 unique patients. 61.8% of patients were female, 80.4% between ages 19 to 64, 55.1% white, 21.8% black, and 18.7% Hispanic. Clinics were open 29.7 hours/week, 4.1 days/week, and 32.9% had a licensed pharmacy. The mean annual budget was $458,028 and clinics were staffed by 156.7 volunteers and 6.9 paid employees per clinic.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Free clinics have become an established part of the safety net for the uninsured. The differences among the clinics are striking, supporting the conclusion that a variety of approaches to the care of the underserved can be used. However, despite their efforts, the responding free clinics manage to provide care to only 650,000 of the nation's 41 million uninsured.
authors: Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908, USA. mmn9y@virginia.edu
authors: Mohan M
authors: MM
authors: Nadkarni
authors: John T
authors: JT
authors: Philbrick
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities / Q000191:economics*; D002017:Budgets; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014481:United States