The new Veterans Administration Clinic at 1408 East St. opens Monday.
“We are very excited to be in this community,” Yolanda Quintero, Community-Based Outpatient Clinic Administrator for the VA, said. “It was our goal over a year ago to transition into this area. Having a population of veterans here, we wanted to be able to extend our services to them.”
The VA is encouraging veterans to make appointments and transfer to the Iola Community-Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC). The Iola clinic will merge three other clinics — in Fort Scott, Chanute and Garnett — that serve about 856 area veterans. About 90% of those veterans will transfer to the Iola clinic, Quintero said. In eastern Kansas, the VA serves more than 40,000 veterans.
All veterans are encouraged to visit or call the clinic to apply for services or schedule an appointment. Monday represents a “soft opening” as staff and patients adjust to the new facility.
A grand opening, offering tours of the clinic for veterans and the general public, will be scheduled soon after the Labor Day holiday.
THE CLINIC will be open five days a week and will offer more services. That includes primary care, women’s health, behavioral health, nurse health, social work, vaccinations and laboratory services. It also will offer expanded telehealth services, including for pharmacy, psychiatry, nutrition, dermatology, eye care screenings and audiology. Other services include home-based care for those who qualify and a “Whole Health” program that works with veterans to develop a personal health care plan for such services as nutrition and activities.
Most of the staff from the Fort Scott office will transfer to the Iola clinic, along with some from Chanute and Garnett, so they will be familiar to veterans who transferred from those clinics, Quintero said.
“We expect to have one of the best staff groups around. They’re a wonderful staff and they have established relationships with a lot of our area veterans,” she said.
Additional services could be added after the Iola clinic is up and running and VA officials have a better idea what specific services are needed. Some services can be addressed through telehealth. Examples are audiology and vision. Veterans can receive a telehealth screening to assess their hearing or vision, but may have to travel to receive or adjust equipment.
The VA offers “a lot of wraparound” services to address everything from homelessness to home care, nursing home care, medication and more. The best way to find out is to apply, the VA staff said.
The Family Physicians Building was selected in December 2023 as the site for the new clinic, after the VA looked at several sites around the area and considered building a new structure before agreeing to a 10-year lease for the clinic space. The building is conveniently located on U.S. 54 and about half a mile from the U.S. 169 interchange.
The building offers 5,200 square feet of clinic space. The Family Physicians group moved into remodeled space on the north side of the building. The Iola Pharmacy remains at its location with drive-thru services.
VA clinic hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Veterans are welcome to come to the clinic to apply for benefits. To learn more, call 620-223-8655 or go online to va.gov.
