Mat-Su Health Services is open and ready to serve community during COVID-19 outbreak

WASILLA — Mat-Su Health Services officials want to remind the public that they’re still open to the public, offering telehealth services amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Chief Operations Officer Vickie Knapp stressed that their phone line is open 24 hours a day and there’s a range of support available to the public. She said there’s been some misconceptions floating around since the outbreak so she wanted to set the record straight.

“People think we’re closed and we’re not,” Knapp said.

Mat-Su Health Services is a community health center that offers a variety of services, ranging from family medicine and behavioral health to dental care and substance abuse treatment. They offer early morning and evening appointments to accommodate the Valley’s variety of scheduled.

Knapp said the center is a state-funded community health center and a federally funded primary carer center so they can cover a lot of bases serving the public. She said the most important thing to note is that they offer services to insured and uninsured individuals with a sliding scale payment model. They can even provide discounts to qualifying patients based on family size and income.

“We don’t turn anyone away for inability to pay,” Knapp said.

Mat-Su Health Services is currently offering telehealth services. Knapp said on top of regular medication check-ins and therapy sessions, they want people to know they can call them even if it’s just to have someone to talk to and try and distress for a few minutes. She said people can call at any time any day of the week.

“We always have someone to talk to people,” Knapp said. “Anyone can call us if they’re feeling overwhelmed.”

For more information about Mat-Su Health Services and their range of services, call 907-376-2411 or visit mshsak.org.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com. Support local journalism. By subscribing you help local journalism continue to thrive. For our latest digital subscription information, see frontiersman.com/site/forms/subscription_services/