{"id":17843,"date":"2022-05-04T00:36:58","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T00:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=17843"},"modified":"2022-05-03T19:39:37","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T19:39:37","slug":"helping-people-stay-healthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/04\/helping-people-stay-healthy\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping People Stay Healthy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McKenna <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"The goal of Family Health Services (FHS) is pretty simple: Keep people healthy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why they are extremely thankful that the St. Luke\u2019s Wood River Foundation helped them recently add a new location in Bellevue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to provide affordable medical, mental health and dental visits as well as pharmacy costs so that we can help people maintain health,\u201d said Aaron Houston, the CEO for FHS. \u201cWe want to help people stay healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more than 30 years, FHS has been providing affordable and accessible health care for folks from throughout south-central Idaho. They also have locations across the region, from Burley to Kimberly to Twin Falls.<\/p>\n

FHS knew there was a need for their services locally because their Twin Falls and Jerome locations saw lots of patients from Blaine County. The Jerome FHS facility was already so busy serving that they had wait lists and had to turn down patients daily.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the big reasons it was so important for FHS to open a location in Bellevue. It not only relieves pressure on their entire system, it makes it easier and more cost effective for local people to make visits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are putting our services where the people are, \u201c Houston said. \u201cWe are making things so affordable that everyone can have more preventative health care. We don\u2019t want people ending up in the ER with something that could have been caught earlier or having a toothache turn into a $20,000 dental bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

FHS had been trying to open locally for years, but the deceivingly high average income levels in Blaine County make it extremely difficult to get grant funding. In fact, Houston had already been shot down by about 75 foundations and hope had been lost.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s when the St. Luke\u2019s Wood River Foundation stepped in to save the day. They generously paid for a remodel of the building on Main Street as well as for new equipment and five years of rent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the St. Luke\u2019s Wood River Foundation, there\u2019s no way this would have happened,\u201d Houston said.<\/p>\n

FHS is considered a community health center and accepts patients of any age or income status. Their Bellevue location offers everything from helping with coughs and colds, to dental and mental health issues, to offering affordable pharmaceuticals. These services combine to improve the overall health of the community they serve.<\/p>\n

One of the keys to success for FHS is that they pride themselves on having great provider retention. The doctors, nurses and staff at FHS stay the same, which helps patients feel more connected and comfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to see their<\/i> doctor. Not just because they have to, but because they want to see a familiar face, someone they know and trust,\u201d Houston said.<\/p>\n

Having more folks get regular checkups and tests helps assure that many minor issues don\u2019t become major problems. The more preventative we can be with health care, the less likely we are to tax our health care system, or increase the taxes or insurance monies needed to subsidize it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at the grassroots,\u201d Houston said, \u201chelping the community be healthier.\u201d<\/p>\n

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By Mike McKenna The goal of Family Health Services (FHS) is pretty simple: Keep people healthy. It\u2019s why they are extremely thankful that the St. Luke\u2019s Wood River Foundation helped them recently add a new location in Bellevue. \u201cWe want to provide affordable medical, mental health and dental visits as well as pharmacy costs so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chamber-corner","8":"category-sponsored"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17847,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17843\/revisions\/17847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}