It can be hard to get to the doctor regularly — especially for Michigan residents who don’t have health insurance or a clinic nearby. A Traverse City nonprofit has a solution: bring doctors to the patients who need them most, with a free clinic on wheels.
It’s a program that’s looking to expand to meet a growing healthcare need across northern Michigan. Millions of Americans are projected to lose health insurance by 2034 due to federal Medicaid cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That puts Michigan’s rural healthcare providers at risk, too.
“A lot of people have been losing Medicaid, and that's something in the back of our minds since the new administration came,” said Stacy O’Donnell, director of medical services at Traverse Health Clinic and TC Street Medicine.
Their mobile medical unit, a bright teal truck the size of a small ambulance, sees up to 27 patients a day. The street medicine initiative is a collaboration between the nonprofit Traverse Health Clinic and Munson Healthcare.
In 2022, the mobile unit began visiting homeless shelters in Traverse City. In the past year and a half, the program has expanded to make regular stops at community hubs in Cadillac, Kalkaska, Ellsworth, Mancelona and Interlochen. O’Donnell said they won’t stop there.
“The main goal is, we would love to be over the whole upper Michigan, because there's a lot of deserts between care,” O’Donnell said. “You get from Ellsworth to Gaylord, it's a big desert of non-care, so that is why it's … essential if we can expand the services.”
Arthur Anderson has been homeless for about six months and lives at the Goodwill Inn Emergency Shelter, where the mobile unit has been giving him treatment for a foot infection.
“I don’t have a vehicle right now,” Anderson said. “I lost my home, it’s the first time I've ever been homeless. … It’s hard for me to get downtown a lot.”
Anderson has diabetes, which makes infection more common and healing take longer. He’s been coming to the mobile unit every week for almost 2 months.
Dr. Jason Schreiber, a doctor at Traverse Health Clinic’s low-cost health center in the city, said treating patients like Anderson at the mobile unit takes extra consideration.
“We really have to look at everything,” Schreiber said. “Does he have the proper footwear? Is he able to practice correct hygiene for this? … Those are other things that we don't really think about when we treat someone in clinic, because we just assume everybody has a shower and soap and band aids at home.”
The mobile unit provides most services that an urgent care would have, including prescription refills from Traverse Health Clinic’s in-house pharmacy. Schreiber said these can be vital to treat chronic health conditions.
“A lot of people rely on us to provide their medications for them, but if they can't get to us, then they're out of their medications for days to weeks,” Schreiber said. “With inconsistent follow-ups, it can really make chronic health and chronic care management difficult.”
Thanks to a combination of federal grants from the Health Resources and Service Administrations, private donors, and a renewed $300,000 donation from Munson Healthcare, any care that insurance doesn’t cover is free.
In Traverse City, the mobile unit most often parks at homeless shelters. But the rural outreach focuses on community hubs, like Walmart or a library. O’Donnell said services are for anyone who walks in.
Among new initiatives, the mobile unit will be helping students at Manton High School get their annual sports physicals, and former Kalkaska inmates on the path to recovery. O’Donnell said the program keeps on growing as more people see the vehicle out in their community.
“Manton High School, they saw us in Cadillac in the Salvation Army,” O’Donnell said. “They requested us, and now the senior center down there heard about us and said, ‘We would love you to come help take care of our seniors.’ So it just keeps building and building … it's a very active, very active need.”
To see where the mobile unit will be on any given day, check the Traverse Health Clinic's website.
