Christ’s Family Clinic Serves Uninsured Adults

Executive director hopes 20-year-old ministry can double reach in coming years

Christ’s Family Clinic — located on the bottom floor of Preston Road Church of Christ — serves uninsured adults while only charging a $15 copay.

The clinic, started about 20 years ago, offers comprehensive primary care and preventative health care. Services include well visits, physicals, mammograms, ophthalmology, optometry, diabetes treatment and prevention classes, and laboratory testing. If the clinic can’t treat a condition, clinic doctors will refer patients to a partnering specialist.

“I think it’s such an important resource because of the centralized location of the clinic,” executive director Haley Dale said. “A lot of people that we treat work in this area and so it’s very easy for them to get to these appointments, and it’s in a dignified, beautiful, safe setting for them to make healthcare a priority for themselves so that they can continue to work.”

No one is turned away from the clinic’s services, but at times there is a backlog of patients due to high demand.

Christ’s Family Clinic is funded by donations from individuals, foundations, and grants. Several long standing donors, especially Preston Road Church of Christ members, have given to the clinic since its inception. Methodist Medical Group additionally provides funding for one part-time staff physician each year.

The clinic also has a team of volunteer physicians who rotate through the clinic to provide specialty services.

Calvert Collins-Bratton, a Christ’s Family Clinic board member who lives in Preston Hollow, said the clinic helps “keep people out of the emergency room.”

“We see a lot of patients that are coming for preventative care,” Collins-Bratton said. “They might have diabetes; they might have high blood pressure. They have what we call comorbidities — conditions that need to be medically evaluated often.”

Collins-Bratton said that just because the clinic doesn’t have a high copay or bill insurance, it doesn’t mean patients receive lower quality care.

“I’ve gotten to meet a lot of (families) where multiple generations see the same doctor, and whether it was a college student who didn’t have any means for insurance or hard-working parents and then grandparents, they could all come here to the clinic and get high-quality care, like they would get anywhere else in the city of Dallas,” Collins-Bratton said.

Dale hopes to continue growing Christ’s Family Clinic to serve more patients. It served more than 1,300 individuals last year, and she hopes to double that in the next few years, noting the clinic has the space and capacity but is lacking funding to hire an additional physician as of now.