As of last school year, the Student Wellness Center at Colorado Mesa University has moved all its physical and mental health facilities to one convenient location. Located across Orchard Avenue, just North of the campus tennis courts, easily within walking distance from campus. It’s in the same building as Community Care where the general public can get similar help. The entrance is around back leading into a separate waiting room than that of Community Care.
The Student Wellness Center started up its close-to-campus location for fall semester last year, with a focus on all aspects of student health and wellness. The improved, centralized location is designed to help college students with both medical and counseling needs, all within the same place.
The facility provides several services, such as physical examinations, pap smears, immunizations and diagnosis and treatment of illness, as well as behavioral health services, counseling, family planning education and birth control etc. according to the Student Wellness Center page on the CMU website.
Bob Lang, Director of Diversity, Advocacy and Health, spoke about the new Wellness Center in an article from last December. In the article “Student Wellness Center moves onto campus,” Lang stated, “Two primary reasons for establishing the on-campus wellness center are ease of access and to coordinate care more effectively.”
Ease of access certainly seems to be the Wellness Center’s main focus. Since medical and behavioral help has merged into the improved office, there has been an approximately 20 percent increase in the volume of patients, according to Practice Manager Tom Bishop. The increase is handled well, for the facility is prepared to handle all the students who come their way.
“On any given day, there’s typically two medical providers and at least two behavioral health providers available in the facility,” Bishop said.
According to the Wellness Center’s page on the University website, the cost is low. Students pay a small co-pay; a maximum of $15 for medical appointments or $5 for counseling. If their insurance co-pays are lower than $15 or $5 respectively, then the students pay the lower price, as Bishop explained. Any additional costs from extra procedures, vaccinations, laboratory tests or any other type of special treatment are billed to the student’s insurance, creating an inexpensive yet still effective system.
“In addition to being on-site and have an increased access and availability to you guys, we do provide a 20 percent discount on all service lines,” Bishop said. The discount is provided to students through all service lines of Community Hospital, even when the Student Wellness Center is not open and the students have to use Community Care instead.
The Student Wellness Center is open Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m., but between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on any of those days, CMU students can access the same benefits and discounts at Community Care in the same building, down the hall, as well as on Sundays from 12-4 p.m.
