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North American Mental Health Services celebrated the grand opening of its new Hollister clinic on Dec. 9 after opening its doors to the public in August.
The clinic site, located at 901 Sunset Drive, joins a growing number of NAMHS clinics in Northern California offering in-office and online psychiatry and psychotherapy to the public.
“We are honored to serve the Hollister community and continue our mission of improving access to compassionate, patient-centered mental health care,” NAMHS said in a press release. “This new clinic represents our commitment to changing lives and strengthening the future of our communities.”
NAMHS—founded in 2011 in Redding and originally named Native American Mental Health Services—began by providing care for Native American communities and tribes, according to its marketing director, Kimberly Maricle.
It adopted its current name after expanding its services, and continues to provide care for Native American tribes under its former name.
Maintaining a desire to reach underserved communities, NAMHS now has clinics near or in several rural regions including Redding, Red Bluff, Monterey, Fairfield, Eureka and Salinas, where mental health services are scarce.
“We actually prefer to open where there are no services,” Maricle said.
That includes services for homeless patients, who Maricle said make up a large part of the organization’s clientele. In those cases, she said, “We go beyond just the therapy and the medication management.”
“We try to [connect patients] with one of our partners—a shelter or another nonprofit—that can help them get a roof over their head first,” Maricle said. “Then, in tandem, we can help them deal with whatever’s going on.”
NAMHS will provide services for clients with mild to moderate mental health care symptoms, she said, in an effort to relieve San Benito County Behavioral Health of its overflow of referrals.
“Counties see more extreme cases than we do,” she said. “So we get referred a lot from counties with their mild cases.”
Geraldine Arce with Behavioral Health agreed, adding the County “looks forward to possibly collaborating through Central California Alliance for Health with NAMHS to help serve the mental health services needs of our county.”
While Arce said the county provides mobile crisis services, therapy, substance use treatment, psychiatric support and case management services, it primarily serves Medi-Cal clients and the indigent population and does not accept private insurance.
NAMHS accepts Medi-Cal, Medicare, and soon, TriCare, as well as most private insurance. Prospective patients with private insurance may contact NAMHS to check their eligibility for medication-management and therapy coverage.
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