The Free Medical Clinic expands behavioral health access through statewide collaborative care partnership
September 17, 2026
The Leon Levine Foundation, The Free Medical Clinic, South Carolina Free Clinic Association, and MUSC are working together to integrate behavioral health services into primary care
The Free Medical Clinic is part of coalition that is expanding access to behavioral health care for uninsured adults through a new telehealth-enabled Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) in partnership with the South Carolina Free Clinic Association and MUSC Health. This initiative is made possible through funding from The Leon Levine Foundation.
The Collaborative Care Model integrates behavioral health support directly into the primary care setting, allowing patients who already receive care at The Free Medical Clinic to also receive behavioral health assessment, care management, and psychiatric consultation. Under the model, patients are assessed by a Behavioral Health Care Manager, while a board-certified psychiatrist reviews cases and provides treatment recommendations to the patient’s primary care provider.
“For the uninsured patients we serve, finding affordable behavioral health care can be even more difficult than accessing primary medical care,” said Caryn Pumphrey, Executive Director of The Free Medical Clinic. “This partnership gives us the opportunity to address both physical and behavioral health needs while allowing patients to continue receiving care from providers they already know and trust. We are incredibly grateful to The Leon Levine Foundation, the South Carolina Free Clinic Association, and MUSC for investing in a model that can make this level of care accessible to our patients.”
Bringing Behavioral Health Care into the Primary Care Setting
The initiative is designed specifically for the needs and realities of South Carolina’s free clinic population. Patients served by free clinics often face barriers that can make accessing traditional behavioral health services difficult, including transportation challenges, limited phone access, irregular follow-up, high unmet social needs, and shortages of behavioral health providers.
Rather than requiring The Free Medical Clinic to build a separate behavioral health program or add specialized staff, the Collaborative Care Model allows the Clinic to remain the patient’s primary point of care while MUSC provides centralized behavioral health care management. This program is intentionally designed to fit within existing free clinic operations and expand access without adding significant operational burden to participating clinics.
For The Free Medical Clinic, the partnership represents another step toward treating the whole person and reducing barriers to care for uninsured adults. By integrating behavioral health services into an established primary care relationship, the Clinic can help patients receive more coordinated care without requiring them to navigate an entirely separate health care system.
About The Leon Levine Foundation
Established in 1980 by Leon Levine, founder and former chairman of Family Dollar Stores, Inc., The Leon Levine Foundation empowers underserved Carolinians to be self-sufficient and strengthens Jewish communities. Based in Charlotte, N.C., the Foundation is on a time-bound mission to maximize its impact through grants and investments across North and South Carolina, supporting long-standing community partners and focused strategic initiatives. To learn more, visit www.leonlevinefoundation.org(opens in new tab)
About The Free Medical Clinic
The Free Medical Clinic provides high-quality healthcare at no cost to uninsured adults in Columbia and communities throughout South Carolina. Through staff and volunteer health care professionals, the Clinic provides primary and specialty care, chronic disease management, and medication assistance as well as other community health resources as needed.
The Free Medical Clinic is committed to ensuring that lack of insurance does not prevent individuals from receiving the health care they need or deserve.
For more information about The Free Medical Clinic, visit www.freemedclinic.org(opens in new tab).
