Central Florida Health Care Building New Lakeland Clinic
by RYAN MILEJCZAK
As healthcare organizations across the county aim to better serve our growing population, Central Florida Health Care is expanding access to health care by building a new center in Lakeland.
Ann Claussen has been the CEO of Central Florida Health Care since 2014 and served on the board for four years prior to that. She says in her time with the organization, she’s seen firsthand how important its services are for Central Florida communities, especially those here in Polk County.
“Our biggest footprint is in Polk, where we have 14 locations,” she explains. “We served about 76,000 patients in Polk last year, providing 260,000 visits.”
With so many patients to tend to, it’s no surprise that CFHC’s existing Lakeland health center isn’t able to keep up with demand.
“Back in 2014, shortly after I started as CEO, we moved primary care to the existing Lakeland location, but we very quickly outgrew that space. We’d been looking to expand healthcare across from the Dreadnoughts’ stadium for many years, so we purchased the building and land with the vision and goal of expanding care.”
Now, that land is slated for a new campus that will provide pediatric medical and dental services, and adult dental services from Lakeland Hills Dental will also be brought to the site.
“Once we pull all services to the new location, we will provide adult dental and medical, pediatric medical and dental, behavioral health services, and OBGYN services. We’ll also have a full teaching kitchen and diabetes center of excellence to help care for our diabetic patient population. We’ll have a nutritionist there who can provide classes for patients. The location will also provide lab and X-ray services to patients, as well as a pharmacy.”
This is a significant improvement over their existing location, which is unable to provide such extensive care due to size constraints.
The existing location houses adult medical and OB GYN care, as well as a small space for behavioral health and a small pharmacy.
“With this expansion, we’ll bring all of pediatrics, medical, and dental to one location,” she says.
“We’ll have more providers and more services to be able to take better care of those in our community at a single location.”
CFHC is dedicated to providing a “one-stop shop” for patients and is proud to be certified as a Patient Centered Medical Home by the Health Resources and Services Administration.
“Central Florida Health Care wants to serve the entire family, that’s why we consider ourselves as, and are certified as, a Patient Centered Medical Home. All these services will make it more convenient for our patients and their families to access care. We’re currently providing care in a facility that’s a little over 11,000 square feet, and the new facility will be at 33,600 square feet.”
This will help CFHC continue providing quality care to one of the fastest growing communities nationwide.
“We treat everybody, including the uninsured and underinsured, and having that availability for anybody is really important,” Claussen says.
She goes on to explain that CFHC has partnered with the Polk County indigent division to help provide this care, and they’ve also qualified for the new market tax credit project, which will help with funding.
CFHC will be breaking ground on this project in about a month. The facility will be a modular building, with the first floor built traditionally, then floors 2, 3, and 4 will be built off site and added to the building. CFHC estimates this building will be open in 12 to 14 months. While the new building is under construction, CFHC will continue serving patients at the existing location.
“Sometimes we talk about Central Florida Health Care as being the best kept secret. But as we continue to expand, especially in Polk County, I think it’s going to catch a lot of attention. The fact that we can serve more people and serve more families is going to be very important.”
