Community Clinic of Door County Opens in Sister Bay, Offers Reproductive Care

The Community Clinic of Door County has opened its doors in a new location.

“There seemed to be more of a demand for us to offer services to the Northern Door community,” said Jane Herlitz, Community Clinic executive director. “It’s difficult for patients to get to Southern Door for those services.”

The clinic offers primary care, mental health care, reproductive health care and alternative care such as massage therapy to people without or with limited insurance.

The new office is in Country Walk shops in Sister Bay, in the old Chou-Chou location that’s now been renovated to house a waiting room, laboratory, office and therapy space, exam room and integrative health room. The space was donated after the clinic had to leave its former Northern Door location in Dr. Joan Traver’s office near Scandia Village after she retired in August 2012.

The Sister Bay office is a satellite location for the clinic’s Sturgeon Bay office and is open on an appointment-based schedule. Patients should still call 920.746.8989 to schedule appointments.

Opening a new location isn’t all that’s changed for the clinic in the last three months. Since the Wellness Center closed in March, the Community Clinic has begun offering reproductive health care, including sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, annual exams and contraceptive services.

Since it began offering those services, the clinic has enrolled 200 new patients and taken on three new staff members, including former Wellness Center employees. Patients enrolled in the Badger Care Family Planning and the Wisconsin Well Woman Program, as well as uninsured patients, are eligible for reproductive health care at the clinic.

The clinic didn’t provide reproductive care before March because there were other options for low-income, uninsured or minimally insured patients.

“Our main focus of our mission is to not duplicate services,” said board member Josephine Guenzel. “We are really here to offer programs and services that might not otherwise be provided.”