This week, a small Sevier County clinic expects to see around 100 patients over two days. Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic is partnering with the James H. Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University to offer free physical exams.The clinic offers these free physicals twice a year, usually in January and July.
Director of Fund Development Ashley Justice says these events give clinic staff a chance to see many more patients than they may typically see over the course of a regular day.
"We are able to see about a hundred patients over that two-day period, and that’s really important to our clinic, because we turn away hundreds of patients each and every month," she says.
Justice says the need for this kind of care keeps growing: "We service over 18-thousand patients of record; that’s up about a thousand patients from last year at this time," she says.
Justice says appointment times for the physicals filled up very quickly once enrollment opened. The clinic only serves uninsured Sevier County residents.