TURLOCK — Legacy Health Endowment and Hello Alpha, which launched a free tele-health program in June for people living in southern Stanislaus County or northern Merced County, has added mental health care to their menu of available services.
Known as Sonja Cares, the program offers free tele-health services for up to 700 local residents for one full year. Each participant is eligible for up to 12 tele-health consultations. The initial range of services included primary care, urgent care, women’s health care, and more. People can now access free mental health services as well.
“By adding free mental health visits via tele-health, our goal is to ensure that more adults can talk with a trained behavioral health practitioner without fear of co-pays or cost,” said Jeffrey Lewis, president and CEO of Legacy Health Endowment. “And, all behavioral health practitioners can communicate in English and Spanish.”
Sonja Cares is accessible through smartphones and computers. It enables communication via secure messages without the need for face-to-face interaction or high-speed internet connections. And, it’s specially designed to meet the needs of “the forgotten middle,” as Lewis refers to individuals and families who don’t qualify for Medi-Cal yet still face financial hardships with their health care.
In a survey of the communities it serves, LHE discovered that eight out of 10 residents skipped or delayed seeking medical care or filling a prescription in order to ensure that a child, spouse, or partner could access services. Nearly half (48 percent) said that the cost of their annual deductible has had a significant effect on their decisions about seeking health care.
Sonja Cares is open to adults who live in one of the 19 zip codes within LHE’s service area.
Tele-health technologies, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, have emerged as essential components of health care delivery, extending access to care around the clock. As Lewis emphasized, Sonja Cares seeks to level the health care playing field for agricultural and dairy workers and their families – as well as middle-income families and first-generation students – by offering them health care that isn’t limited by hours of operation or unpredictable costs.
Sonja Cares is named in honor of Sonja Ann Iltis, a Turlock resident and longtime volunteer at the Emanuel Cancer Center. A founding member of Emanuel’s Cancer Awareness Night Out committee, Iltis died of cancer in 2016.
LHE is a non-profit based in Turlock that aims to improve the health of residents in its service area by increasing access to health care services and promoting healthy lifestyle decisions. Earlier this year, Legacy Health started a free vision care program for public school students, launched a nursing scholarship program to help rebuild the Central Valley’s nursing infrastructure and brought neurology services to rural parts of Stanislaus and Merced counties.
