About the Organization
Heritage Healths history is the basis for and really drives our mission and organization as a whole. To understand Heritage, you have to understand our history. We started as an idea in 1985 with Lidwin Dirne. Lidwin had befriended her neighbor, a single mother of 4 children who struggled to find access to healthcare. This mother, Mary Ellen, continued to struggle with healthcare and tragically ended up passing away from complications at 55, leaving her four children behind. Lidwin felt this was unacceptable. She felt empowered, gathered her resources, and started a free, volunteer run clinic one evening per week. Eventually we grew so much, that we applied for a federal grant. In 2004 we opened as a federally qualified health center. Even though Heritage has rebranded, our mission is still the same: to deliver a healthcare experience that provides hope, inspires change, and extends life for our patients and our community.
We believe that healthcare should be accessible and affordable for everyone, regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. Patients can pay for clinic visits on a sliding scale based on income and family size. We also offer scholarships through the Mary Ellen fund to help offset medical costs.
We started originally with primary care and dental services to meet the needs of our most vulnerable in the community. We now also have mental health support with family support services (our counseling team), psych services, and restored paths (our addiction services team). Our post acute care team is based within Skill Nursing Facilities and Assisted Living Facilities in the community. Finally, we have a street medicine community outreach team that is partly mobile, meeting the homeless within the community and treating them where they are.
About the Community
Heritage Health is located in beautiful North Idaho! We have clinic locations in Post Falls, Rathdrum, Coeur dAlene, Kellogg, and St. Maries. North Idaho is known for its outdoor recreation opportunities.
Lakes, rivers and streams dominate Idahos five northern counties with 140 lakes and nearly 2,000 miles of rivers and streams. More than half of all the surface waters in Idaho are here in the panhandle. The Coeur dAlene Resort is also home to the first floating golf course. Summer days in the Inland Northwest (as we call it) are hard to beat with nearly 16 hours of daylight and highs averaging in the low 80s. We have opportunities to boat, fish, hike, and bike!
There are 25 state parks in North Idaho and 4 national forests. Both offer great opportunities to hike, mountain bike, and ride all terrain vehicles. We are 240 miles from Glacier National Park and an hour and a half away from the Canadian border!
Bicyclists will appreciate some of the areas former mining tunnels that have been converted into trails. The Route of the Hiawatha mountain bike or hike trail is 15 miles long with 10 train tunnels and 7 sky-high trestles. The Centennial Trail provides an opportunity to hike or bike on a paved trail spanning from Nine Mile Falls (northwest of Spokane) all the way to Higgins Point (which is 6 miles east of Coeur dAlene).
North Idaho is also a great area for winter weather enthusiasts. We sit around 2,200 feet in elevation and see about 63 inches of snow each year. We boast 5 ski resorts within an hours drive of Coeur dAlene and miles and miles of snowmobile trails.
The Spokane International Airport is within a 30 minutes drive of Coeur dAlene, so youre always able to take off for the weekend to visit family or vacation.