ABOUT US

We strive to create a healthier community by providing healthcare for uninsured and under-insured people. We are here for anyone in need of the services we provide. Clinic days are every Tuesday (except holidays) 3:30-7pm.

At the Rice Lake Area Free Clinic we strive to ​create a healthier community by providing healthcare for uninsured & underinsured people. To date, we have helped over 1450 individuals directly and many more indirectly. 
​In 2022, we have had 100+ volunteers providing around 4,300 volunteer hours. This correlates to around $100,000 provided to the community in volunteer services. Our 4 cooperating hospitals donate in excess of $39,000 in lab and x-ray services annually. 
​Our Patient Assistance Program brings in over $43,000 in free medications annually.

Our Clinic Director

Melissa Price
is a 2001 BSN graduate and a 2006 MSN graduate, both from Edgewood College in Madison WI. She has a rich clinical background including: inpatient medical nursing, Kidney Clinic CNS, Labor/Delivery/Postpartum care, home health, and primary care. She is passionate about health care and wants everyone to be able to access affordable health care in a timely fashion. She also teaches occasional wild edible plant classes independently or with her husband Sam Thayer. Her hobbies include: Gardening, quilting, gathering wild plants to eat, walking/hiking. She also has three children: Myrica 13, Joshua 11, and Rebekah 6.

Rice Lake Area Free Clinic Accomplishments and Annual Report 2021

  • Patient visits were 434 with 64 new patients. New patients were approximately  a  20% increase from 2020.

  • Applied for and received over $45,000 of prescription medications for our patients free of charge from pharmaceutical companies through patient assistance programs.

  • Continued to coordinate care including mental healthcare, diagnostic workups, specialty care and ACA signups.
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  • The RLAFC Board completed  a three year strategic plan with a professional facilitator who is now on our board. The plan includes: 1. strengthening our community collaborations to better meet all the needs of our patients and increase awareness of our services,  2. continue to invest in our human resources of the board, volunteers and clinic director with leadership training and cross training and 3. regional publicity campaign.
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  • Hosted a summer intern who is aspiring to attend medical school. She assisted on clinic nights, updated and distributed publicity materials, and created patient friendly education materials, as well as, creating a one page resource list by county to hand out to our patients. 
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  • ​Provided preceptorship experiences for two nurse practitioner students.

  • We conducted our first patient satisfaction evaluation on which we scored 4.9 out of 5.

  • We recruited and oriented 8 new volunteers despite COVID pandemic.

  • We were successful in writing and being awarded 5 grants including Rice Lake Community Health Foundation, Medica, Compeer, Helen Bradley Larsen, and Servite Sisters of Mercy Chicago.

  • We recruited 3 new Spanish interpreters and had 5 volunteers complete the online course Spanish for Medical Professionals.

  • We worked towards becoming independent on the payroll function which will be fully implemented in 2022.

  • Due to COVID we shifted our delivery of care as needed to continue to provide care for our patients, including parking lot medicine, med pickup on day of convenience to patients and labs drawn  as needed Monday through Thursday. ​