Windrose Health Network, a federally qualified health center that provides primary and preventive health services to families with limited financial means and no insurance, has entered a partnership with Franciscan St. Francis Health through the St. Francis Health Network.
Windrose physicians will participate in the Network’s Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield delivery system serving Hoosier Healthwise members. Their membership in the network will provide Hoosier Healthwise patients who have Windrose physicians with better service, access and continuity of care.
“This relationship fits with our Franciscan mission of providing care to the poor and uninsured, and it will help tie our two organizations together,” said Jennifer Westfall, regional executive director of St. Francis Health Network.
In another move to provide better access, the physicians at Southside OB/GYN, a practice long affiliated with Franciscan St. Francis, will begin providing deliveries and late-term checkups for pregnant patients under the care of Windrose physicians.
“Expectant patients will continue to see their Windrose physicians over the course of their pregnancies until they reach the final weeks,” added Westfall, who also serves as vice president of marketing and product development for Franciscan St. Francis. “This arrangement will provide stable care and help prevent patients in labor from arriving at the emergency department.”
Windrose maintains health facilities on Indianapolis’ Southside and in Trafalgar, Edinburgh and Hope. Designation as a federally qualified health center means that the facility is located in an area identified as medically underserved and provides primary health, oral, and mental health/substance abuse services to persons of all ages. They charge for care on a sliding-fee scale based on the patients’ family income and size.
