The Community Health Care Clinic in Normal has seen a big increase in need over the last nine months. Director Holly Wayland-Hall said in a Sound Ideas interview that overarching demand for service has risen about 75% through the first three quarters of this fiscal year.
"We're pretty maxed out in terms of the number of patients that we are serving, and so we are looking now at the opportunity to grow that clinical team," said Wayland-Hall.
- Patient visits +71.5%
- Unique patients served + 75.4%
- New patients seen per month +76.5%
The current patient load is about 550 people, though that is fluid. The average number of active patients for the 2025 calendar year was 393. The clinic serves lower income uninsured people who do not qualify for Medicaid.
Foremost among several reasons for the rise in need, she said, is the several-year stepped increase in the state minimum wage.
"An individual making minimum wage working 30 or more hours a week no longer qualified for Medicaid. So, we have at the clinic adjusted our qualifying criteria to absorb some of that gap," said Wayland-Hall.
The clinic accepts uninsured patients who don't have insurance and can't reasonably afford coverage. Last year, the clinic raised its income cutoff from 185% of the poverty rate to 250%.
Immigrant health care
Another factor in the increased need included the end of a state Medicaid program for immigrants in July 2025.
“For an immigrant, even an immigrant of permanent residency in the United States, within that first five years of that permanent residency, they are not able to apply for services like Medicaid. There's another identified gap there,” said Wayland-Hall.
When the program rolled out in 2022, the clinic helped sign a number of patients up for Medicaid and they fell off the clinic roster. Wayland-Hall said those people are now returning.
Rising insurance prices have made policies less affordable for many. And the end of financial penalties for people who do not buy insurance on the national exchange has also caused an uptick in the number of uninsured residents in Bloomington-Normal.
She hesitated to ascribe a specific portion of the increased need for care to the effects of President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
“There could be some additional challenges with loss of access to Medicaid, but the reality is, we're already experiencing that,” said Wayland-Hall. “Certainly, the more uninsured individuals that exist out in the community, the more need there is … We are just preparing for that.”
The clinic was founded more than three decades ago by the two hospitals in the community to divert people from emergency rooms and lower the amount of unreimbursed care at the hospitals. OSF St. Joseph Medical Center employs clinic staff and offers benefits, though the clinic pays salaries. Carle BroMenn Medical Center provides the building the clinic uses. Both institutions do lab work for the clinic. Wayland-Hall says a number of physicians and other medical providers also volunteer at the clinic.
Wayland-Hall said they want to add a nurse practitioner and a social worker or case manager.
"We’re primarily funded through donors, individuals who believe in our mission and believe in what we do, who give funds to the clinic so that we can operate. We don't, like most medical institutions, get insurance money or any government program funding to rely upon. It's up to us to raise those funds through our donors,” said Wayland-Hall.
The clinic's annual fundraising lunch is Friday at the Bloomington Country Club.
The clinic raised about $1.5 million in donations last year. Wayland-Hall said to expand staff, the clinic will need to increase that by 50%.
