NIC’s Student Health Clinic held its grand reopening on Jan. 24th after a temporary closure last May.
Heritage Health had run the clinic for the last several years, but after the expiration of the contract with NIC, the decision was made to return to running the clinic themselves with assistance from multiple community health partners.
“Heritage health is still a community partner with the college,” Gerlitz said. “But we needed to branch out, and we went back to the original way of doing business with the clinic.”
“I’m extremely excited to meet new students who have no idea we have this here,” said Tim Gerlitz, director of student disability and health services. “We have students on campus who don’t have health insurance. They end up with illnesses and infections that need treated and they don’t have the funds to do that, and it can impact their school work.”
Nurse practitioner Lori Taylor is the new head of the student health clinic. With over 35 years experience in the nursing and health industry, Lori is off to a running start this semester, having seen as many students the day of the grand reopening as she had the week prior.
“I’ve been very busy so far with just the first two weeks. I’ve had ten students just today,” Taylor said.
The student health clinic, located on the second floor of the SUB, offers many services free to students. Offering care for acute medical services, vaccinations, birth control, STI testing and more, the clinic is open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 8:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. The clinic accepts walk-in appointments as well as scheduled appointments, and continue to work with community health partners when services need to be referred out.
Counseling services are also offered to students through NIC health services. It is short term, solution-focused, therapeutic counseling available to all students. Those that need more comprehensive care can be referred to community partners. Some services such as medical procedures, physical exams and lab work may come with a reasonable co-pay.
“It’s really important for students to have options,” said Sonja Nehr-Kanet, program director of medical lab technology at NIC. “They need physicals and vaccinations, and so for us to best advise them where to go, typically the campus resources tend to be more economical and more convenient for students.”
