BRIDGEPORT -- On a recent morning, Ivette Medina walked to the Chase Wellness Center on East Main Street because her sneezing, wheezing and stuffy nose symptoms were not improving.

Medina, 36, braved the cold and the rain -- without an umbrella -- because she was worried that she might have contracted the H1N1 virus. If the walk-in clinic, run by Optimus Health Care, weren't just a few blocks from her Jane Street home, Medina said she wouldn't have known where to turn.

That's because Medina has been insured through the Community Health Network of Connecticut for the last six months since she was laid off from her job at AT&T. "The majority of the doctors don't want to take the Community Health Network," she said. "Community centers like this are the only ones that take that type of insurance."

According to Ludwig Spinelli, president and chief operating officer for Optimus, community health centers serve more than 20 million people nationwide. The centers, generally located in medically underserved areas, provide dental, pediatric, women's health and adult health care under one roof. As is the case with Optimus and another local community health provider, Southwest Community Health Center, the agencies also employ a number of other health-care professionals, including dermatologists, podiatrists and chiropractors.

Optimus also recently acquired a digital mammography machine. Screenings are done Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a referral from a doctor. Southwest, meanwhile, offers mental and behavioral health services at their sites in the South End and West Side. The two health-care agencies also operate 10 of the city's school-based health clinics and provide services in several homeless shelters and churches throughout the city.

The centers, which receive federal and state funds, have to adhere to strict federal guidelines and their clients comprise half the membership of their boards of directors. Most of their funding, however, is from patient billing.

Katherine Yacavone, president and CEO of Southwest, said a stereotype persists that community health centers are solely for "poor people." "Quite the contrary, we provide superior care to everyone regardless of their status," she said. "We're not some lower level life forms. We've been the best kept secret since the 1960s."

Spinelli said the stereotype might exist because of the health centers' locations and their unique mission. "We are in areas of greatest need," he said. "The care is as good as any private practice, but we have a different mission. No one gets turned away." Uninsured and low-income clients are placed on discounted fee schedules.

Community health centers will have a vital role in any health-care reform bill, said U.S. Rep Jim Himes, D-4, who has hosted numerous health-care information sessions throughout the region. "The health-care reform bill recognizes that community health centers are often the only source of care for low-income people and certainly their only source of preventive care," he said.

The latest bill being discussed would raise the Medicaid eligibility levels to 150 percent of the federal poverty level for all adults. Community health centers will be essential for offsetting the expected increase in the number of currently uninsured people seeking health care, Himes said. "There has been a fair amount of money made available (to community health centers) in anticipation for the demand," he said.

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