Dr. Juanita Sapp

After five years of leading the medical staff at Heritage Health Center, Dr. Juanita Sapp is stepping down as Chief Medical Officer of Powell’s community health center.

Dr. Sapp was the sole physician on staff when HHC opened its doors in Powell in September of 2015. She will remain one of five medical providers at HHC as she hands off the CMO role to Dr. Sarah Sowerwine this month.

“I’ve always loved seeing patients,” Sapp said, describing herself as a provider at heart.

At the same time, she found the administrative role as CMO rewarding in the founding of HHC.

“I learned a ton [as CMO]. I learned a lot about Powell by meeting people. We have a great relationship with groups here in Powell. I’ve enjoyed my relationship with Powell Valley Healthcare. What a great bunch of people,” Sapp said.

Colette Mild, CEO of the Powell community health center, and Dr. Sapp have worked side by side for five years.

“Dr. Sapp’s wisdom, experience and dedication provided me, as a new administrator, and to the health center as a new healthcare facility, the foundation needed to be successful long into the future,” Mild said. “Her guidance has provided insight into the type of patient care the health center wants to provide and has afforded a number of area medical students the opportunity to learn medicine from one of the best. We are glad she’s not quite fully ready to leave us.”

Dr. Sowerwine is coming to HHC from the Wind River Cares clinic at Arapaho on the Wind River Reservation, where she was assistant chief medical officer. She is transitioning to Heritage Health Center in December, getting to know the clinic and its practitioners.

“When we saw Sarah [Sowerwine] come our way, we want to take full advantage of that. She’s energetic and can take this clinic to the next level in five years,” Sapp said.

Pioneering the way for HHC has been a rewarding experience, Sapp said.

“I think I can say the thing I’m most proud of,” she said, “is we have been able to see and help people who have lost choices for payment of medical services.”

Heritage Health Center is a Federally Qualified Community Health Center and has an annual operating grant of about $850,000 from the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA). HHC offers services on a sliding fee scale based on family size and family income.  At the low end of the fee schedule, office visits are billed at $20 per medical visit and $5 per behavioral health visit.

About one-third of HHC patients have no insurance at all; about a third of patients are on Medicare, but also qualify for the sliding fee schedule; the other third have medical insurance, but with high enough deductibles they also can qualify for the sliding fee.

“HHC has been there to do their medical care, as well as providing behavioral health care, finding resources to help people cover medical and other family costs,” Sapp said. “HHC has been a resource center as well as a medical provider.”

Sapp added that Heritage Health Center has been instrumental in making behavioral health services available in the community at a reasonable price. She also pointed to HHC’s creation of a satellite division in Greybull to extend medical services in Big Horn County with a sliding fee scale.

Doctoring to the medically-underserved has been a way of life for Sapp in her medical career. She noted that Creighton Medical School in Omaha, Nebraska — where she earned her medical degree in the early 1980s — emphasizes “caring for others.”

She has made it her mission. Sapp was recently recognized by the Community Health Association Mountain Plains States (CHAMPS) with its 2020 award as Outstanding Advocate of the Underserved (see related story below).

“I’ve never worked in anything else,” Sapp said of a career of serving at-risk populations.

Prior to returning to her hometown in 2015 to become the initial Chief Medical Officer at Heritage Health Center, she practiced in Arizona in a community health center at Tucson and in hospital and clinic settings in Maricopa County and the Phoenix area.

“We saw so many people with so little. It was an invigorating place to meet them where they live,” Sapp said.

She described working with Native Americans of the Yaqui Tribe, a small tribe in the middle of the Phoenix area.

“Of course, they had no insurance. They suffered from chronic conditions of diabetes and hypertension. They would come in for diabetes after they were blind,” she said.

“They weren’t recognized by the government. As a result, they had nothing. They were so poor,” Sapp said. “How could this happen in the United States?”

Juanita Sapp recognized for serving the vulnerable

Dr. Juanita Sapp has always valued being part of the health care safety net for at-risk populations.

Sapp, chief medical officer at Heritage Health Center in Powell, has been recognized as Outstanding Advocate of the Underserved in an award presented by the Community Health Association of Mountain Plains States (CHAMPS). The association represents community health centers in seven states.

In 2015, she moved back to her hometown of Powell to become chief medical officer of HHC, when the new federally qualified health center opened its doors. Sapp had been practicing medicine for many years in Arizona. She is a 1973 graduate of Powell High School.

The award citation notes that, throughout her career, Sapp has always advocated for the underserved, providing services to vulnerable and underserved populations.