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The grand opening for the new Federally Qualified Health Care Center (FQHC) in Manteo is slated for July 11, according to an update provided at the June 13 meeting of the Manteo Healthcare Task Force by Task Force Chair Malcolm Fearing.
The center will be in the old CenturyLink location at 402 Budleigh Street in Manteo. The facility will have four exam rooms, a lab and private pharmacy.
An FQHC is a federally funded nonprofit health center or clinic that serves medically underserved areas and populations. The clinic charges fees based on a patient’s income for insured and uninsured patients.
The news of the health center coming to Manteo was announced at a September 2022 Manteo Healthcare Task Force meeting and came in the wake of growing concerns about a local provider shortage after more than 2,400 patients of Outer Banks Family Medicine in Manteo were notified that spring that they no could longer receive care there.
In July 2022, the Manteo Board of Commissioners appointed members to a Healthcare Task Force and directed them to address the growing healthcare concerns in Dare County.
Joe Rockenstein, CEO of the Ocracoke and Engelhard Health Centers, has said that an FQHC is focused on providing care for underserved communities as defined by the federal government.
“The underserved are [defined as] the uninsured, the underinsured, Medicaid and Medicare. That’s who they classify as far as being underserved. And so that was what our primary edict is to do,” he said. However, anyone can use the clinic’s services based on the sliding scale.
