AAFP Foundation provides funding for free clinics

Equipment and supplies for new free health clinics in Palm Bay, Florida, and Bluffton, South Carolina, are the first results of an initiative funded by the AAFP Foundation.

The program, Family Medicine Cares, provides grant money to eligible clinics to buy much of the equipment and supplies they need to begin operating. The foundation is working with Volunteers in Medicine (VIM), a nonprofit organization that develops clinics in underserved areas.

"Over the past year, free clinics in the United States have seen a dramatic rise in patient visits, by as much as 50%. Most of these people live in working households. Even with the rollout of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, there will always be an underserved population-men, women, and children who simply fall between the cracks," the AAFP Foundation says on its Web site.

VIM has helped to establish 86 free clinics since the mid-1990s.