A new health clinic in downtown St. Cloud has begun offering services to the area’s low-income and underinsured patients.
Aslan Health Clinic, founded by local husband and wife Clay and Rebecca White, opened in August to offer general family medicine appointments, such as annual physicals and sports physicals. It also offers care for conditions like diabetes and heart disease, all at a reduced cost to ease the burden on the area’s most challenged patients.
Teagan King
Aslan Health offers same-day $75 appointments
Located at 1400 W. St. Germain St., the nonprofit clinic prioritizes transparent pricing, with same-day discounted appointments always costing $75. For additional care, like labs and imaging that they can’t do in-house, the team contracts with several labs to keep prices down.
The couple started discussing the idea for Aslan Health about a year and a half ago, when Rebecca White watched a TED Talk from a man named P.J. Parmar, who had started a similar clinic in Colorado.
The two had been looking for a way to combine their faith and passion for medical care into one effort, so she proposed the idea to Clay White. He was a bit skeptical at first, she said, but he soon warmed up to the idea and told her that “God doesn’t think you’re too crazy.”
Model of Healthy Living
Before starting Aslan Health, Rebecca White spent 11 years working as a nurse within the CentraCare system. Clay White has spent 20 years as a deputy sheriff in Sherburne County and 21 years in the Army National Guard. The two said their experiences provide the right mix of leadership for the clinic.
Aslan Health also uses the Model of Healthy Living, created by Church Health in Tennessee, which looks at well-being through a multidimensional lens beyond just medical care. The Whites said it can help them get patients into better health before medical concerns become large issues.
“We wanted to present into the healthcare system of, how do we maintain health, not just respond to your illness,” Rebecca White said.
In keeping with their goals of doing good in the community and helping the less fortunate, the Whites’ daughter suggested naming their clinic after the lion Aslan in the “Chronicles of Narnia” series. Aslan sacrificed himself to save the character Edmund.
The couple also incorporates their faith into their practice, and they said Aslan provides an inspirational model of caring for others in the way Jesus did.
“Health care is something that Jesus had great stake in, most of his miracles were healing miracles,” Rebecca White said. “He healed across the spectrum, so we wanted to offer an opportunity for that group of people that kind of fell off the radar.”
As the clinic continues to get up and running, the Whites want it to serve as a valuable community resource by offering flexible care in a way that may be less intimidating than trying to navigate a larger health care system.
Aslan Health can also provide recommendations or connections to follow-up care at other clinics such as CentraCare, which they hope makes the process easier for patients, especially for those who don’t speak English.
In the future, Aslan Health plans to continue expanding its care to other areas like dentistry to help improve self-confidence and employability, Clay White said.
“If you do restorative dentals, you can really increase someone’s social and economic mobility, you increase their confidence,” he said.
‘It’s about helping people’
The Whites also plan to add foot care, especially for aging patients, and will begin offering cancer screenings by the end of the month.
But while Aslan Health is exploring room to grow, Rebecca White said they will also stay focused on connecting with new customers and volunteers to “bring health to the community, and we want to do that in a compassionate way.”
Read the full story on St. Cloud Times.
Teagan King covers business and development for the St. Cloud Times. She can be reached at teking@gannett.com.
