HealthNet Opens New Barrington Health & Dental Center on City’s Near Southeast Side
2/1/2012
The new HealthNet Barrington Health & Dental Center opens its doors to patients on Monday, February 20, 2012. In its expanded space, the 39-year-old community health center will be able to care for more than 9,000 patients and provide more than 34,000 patient visits at capacity.
The 39-year-old community health center on the near southeast side of Indianapolis outgrew its current space nearly five years ago, in response to growing community need. Thanks to $5.1 million in federal stimulus funding under ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), HealthNet built the new, 26,000-square-foot facility adjacent to the old one at 3401 E. Raymond St., quadrupling the health center’s former size and capacity.
The expanded center, designed by Axis Architecture & Interiors and built by Brandt Construction, has 43 primary care and OB/GYN exams rooms, lab and digital x-ray services. New services include WIC, a health and nutrition program for women, infants and children, and dental care, as a state-of-the-art dental center with six operatories has been added.
The center also offers ancillary services such as podiatry, optometry, social work services and behavioral health, access to discounted prescriptions as well as nutrition and smoking cessation services.
The health center is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays; 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays. Dental hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Mondays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.
HealthNet accepts all Medicare, Medicaid, Hoosier Healthwise plans and most commercial insurance plans. HealthNet has a sliding fee scale for those who are eligible.
For more information, visit http://www.indyhealthnet.org. Call (317) 781-4994 for medical appointments or (317) 782-2125 for dental appointments.
About HealthNet Barrington Health & Dental Center:
The health center got its start back in the late 1960s when the Watoto Wa Simbas, a local activist group, saw a need for quality health care in the southeast side area and fought to bring it to reality.
For five years—from 1968 to 1973—members met with then-mayor Richard Lugar and Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County to find funding to start a neighborhood health center in the area. As a result, Barrington Health Center first opened in 1973 at the Barrington Apartments on Renton Avenue. Due to a growing demand for services, the health center moved nearby to a larger facility on Bethel Avenue in 1975. In 1977, Methodist Hospital assumed operation of the health center, at the request of Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County.
In 1983, Barrington, Southeast Health Center, and Southwest Health Center, all previously operated by Methodist Hospital, joined together to form HealthNet, a separate, 501c3 non-profit network of community health centers. Fifty-one percent of the network’s governance board was made up of health center patients representing local communities – as it is today.
In 1992, Barrington Health Center moved into its most recent home at 3401 E. Raymond St. and has become one of HealthNet’s busiest health centers.
About HealthNet
HealthNet (http://www.indyhealthnet.org) is Indiana’s largest Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and is an IU Health affiliate. Since 1968, it has played a vital role in providing access to affordable, quality health care, counseling, outreach and support programs to Indianapolis residents, many of whom are uninsured or underinsured and live below the federal poverty level. Through its network of six community-based health centers, an OB/GYN care center, a pediatric and adolescent care center, a maternal-fetal medicine center and eight school-based clinics, HealthNet annually serves over 50,000 individuals.