Personalities: No Insurance Needed

Tired of watching uninsured people struggle to receive adequate healthcare, Lorna Stuart, MD, became their advocate—and their saving grace. As her son prepared to graduate from college, Stuart, after more than 20 years in private practice, opened The Clinic: Medical Center for the Uninsured in 2002 after she and others raised about $400,000 to renovate a long-vacant rectory. Now, the Phoenixville, PA, facility is funded through donations from local Rotary Clubs, churches, and sometimes from patients, who are asked to pay only as much as they can afford for clinic services. The only requirement for patients? You cannot have health insurance.

On opting out of an insurance-run industry: I started my own practice in 1980 and later added a few partners, but the insurance companies were driving me nuts. There were so many things I couldn't do, things the insurance companies said they wouldn't do. It was compromising my autonomy in my decision-making with patients and my work as a doctor. So in 2001, when my son was about to graduate from college, I said, “Now's the time.”

On helping the uninsured: The need is astonishing. I saw the extent of the need on paper when I started working to open the clinic, but I didn't really see it until we opened. Now, we're literally saving lives. People who run out of their diabetes medication or blood pressure medication can just come in and get them here. To see a grown man weep with joy because we helped him get his medication is just wonderful.

On The Clinic's offerings: We are almost a comprehensive center. We have psychologists, urology, ophthalmology, pediatrics, dermatologists, and obstetrics and gynecology. We have a lab on site, too, and can get patients a good price on tests that require off-site lab work.

On The Clinic's growth: We're swamped now. We're seeing people from at least 100 different countries because our only restriction is that you need to be uninsured. People are coming from everywhere; they're desperate for care. We have a world map hanging on the wall in the office and our foreign patients put a pin on the country they're from. Many organizations are helping us [financially]—Rotary Clubs, churches. We get donations of paper, stamps, and other office supplies, too, which is great. That's money we don't have to spend that we can put toward care for patients.

—Justine Murphy