Clackamas Volunteers in Medicine

The Clackamas Free Clinic: Clackamas Volunteers in Medicine (CVIM or CFC) is a volunteer-driven, nonprofit, primary care clinic that provides healthcare and vision services to low-income, uninsured or underinsured adults living in Clackamas County. CVIM was founded in 2011 by a group of Oregon City residents and opened its doors in 2012. CVIM does not bill insurance or charge patients for the care they receive. CVIM is entirely community supported by grants and local donations and receives neither state nor federal funding. Services are provided primarily through the labor of volunteer doctors, nurses, scribes, interpreters, office staff phlebotomists, etc. The typical CVIM patient is an adult supporting a family and working several low-wage jobs. Our patients are over-income for the Oregon Health Plan but living paycheck to paycheck. They come to us with progressively serious chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes, having never had access to preventive or regular health care. Before finding our clinic our patients have had to make difficult choices when it comes to their own healthcare, such as between paying rent, feeding their families or visiting the doctor.Our patients are what we are now calling “essential workers”, adversely affected by disparities in healthcare access and the stress of economic hardship .