Can’t afford health care? Rock Hill clinic expanding help for those in need

A Rock Hill health care center for low-income and uninsured families is expanding its medical, dental and mental health services.

Last month, Affinity Health Center in Rock Hill opened a new, larger facility at 455 Lakeshore Parkway in Tech Park South.

The new center allows for an expansion of services, including dental, mental health and medical.

The center celebrated the grand opening of the 30,000-square-foot site on Thursday.

Affinity also operates part-time sites in Clover, York and Fort Mill. Those sites do not provide every service offered in Rock Hill.

Affinity serves patients with or without insurance and accepts private insurance, Medicaid and Medicare, said Anita Case, executive director.

About 90 percent of Affinity’s patients are offered income-based discounts on the center’s services.

About 60 percent are uninsured.

Case said the move allows Affinity to better serve patients.

She said the center served about 4,500 patients of all ages in the old site and is adding 150 to 250 new patients every month, many of whom are low-income and are uninsured.

“It’s surprising to me how many new patients continue to come every month,” Case said.

The new facility houses an on-site pharmacy and more exam rooms.

Affinity was offering dental services just one day a week and had an eight-month waiting list, but now has a full-time dental clinic on site, Case said.

The new facility also grows the number of exam rooms from six to 12, with room for up to 12 more.

Affinity also offers free HIV/STD testing for patients and HIV and Hepatitis C treatment. Affinity also offers behavioral health services and counseling on site.

Many of Affinity’s patients come with medical problems have long been unaddressed, Case said. She said the goal is to meet all of their needs in one place.

“We want to take care of the whole person,” Case said. “We want to be sure that people who are unable to get the care they need have a place to go.”

Case said Affinity is looking to increase its services for substance abuse in the near future.

“We were so limited in our old space,” she said. “This gives us an opportunity for us to identify the needs in the community and work really hard to meet those needs.”

For more information, call Affinity Health Center at 803-909-6363 or visit affinityhealthcenter.org.

Other low-income services

• The York County Free Clinic, located at 410 Oakland Ave. in Rock Hill, offers medical services for low-income, uninsured citizens ages 18 to 64 years old. More information: Call 803-366-6337 or e-mail info@yorkcountyfreeclinic.org.
• North Central Family Medicine located at 1131 Saluda St. at Rock Hill offers a sliding-fee discount program for South Carolina residents who do not have insurance. More information: Call 803-325-7744 or visit ncfmc.net.
  
  

This story was originally published July 27, 2018 at 10:21 AM.