For a person suffering with depression or anxiety, the inability to find help due to financial constraints serves only to make those issues even more damaging.
St. Charles Community Health Center’s Behavioral Health branch aims to address that negative cycle. The agency provides accessible, high quality health care with a focus on delivering psychiatric evaluations and medication management for people and communities that might have difficulty accessing healthcare.
That difficulty can often be due to the lack of insurance or necessary insurance coverage in the area of psychiatric health care.
Within St. Charles Parish, there are offices in Luling, Norco and St. Rose, the latter open only during the school year. Clients range from ages 4 to 66 and receive full range therapeutic treatment for depression, anxiety, autism and other issues.
Lydia Roberts, Behavioral Health Manager at St. Charles Community Health Center, estimates many clients at the center might not otherwise be able to receive any assistance at all for their issues.
“There are private practices that they could go to, but at a phenomenal cost,” Roberts said. “We can offer (pricing) on a sliding scale. There are individuals in the community who are struggling with many levels of depression, and that can potentially lead to difficulties even functioning in their day-to-day lives. We get folks here who pretty often wouldn’t be able to receive treatment and maybe just needed some guidance, but they don’t seek help because they can’t afford it.”
Social anxiety and panic attacks are two issues that can leave a person potentially debilitated and impaired, which can negatively affect their relationships, employment or schooling.
For each new patient, Behavioral Health conducts an in-take evaluation with a licensed clinical social worker.
“Sometimes, a person suffering from a chronic issue might need medication and not know it,” Roberts said. “We can refer them to a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse if that’s the case and allow them to see if any kind of medication would be suitable.”
The health center is under the Access Health Louisiana banner, a nonprofit network of clinics that is a partner agency of the United Way of St. Charles. It is the largest network of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in Louisiana.
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