Ted Bolognani walked through the HealthFirst family clinic in Franklin, leading a tour of the aging building on Tuesday.

With Rep. Maggie Goodlander in tow, he walked through the center’s tight hallways, one dimly lit because of broken ceiling lights and another noticeably cold because the heating system couldn’t keep up.

Bolognani said the only upgrade the community health center has seen in its 30 years of operation is a fresh coat of paint on the walls. More important than any facility issues, however, are the center’s many financial constraints, which have affected the number of patients they have been able to see.

“We have no shortage of patients calling us to get appointments, and with only so much space, there becomes a backlog or a waiting time. We don’t want that,” said Bolognani, president and CEO of HealthFirst. “We don’t want a new patient who moved to town here having to wait two months, three months to get an appointment with us. We want to get them in right away.”

The clinic had acquired the adjacent building with plans to grow and expand its services. They sought help from the community to fund the $5.2 million project.

In December, HealthFirst received a $900,000 federal grant to help renovate and expand the building to accommodate approximately 641 new patients and conduct 1,671 more annual visits. Goodlander helped facilitate the application process.

Bolognani envisions building three new check-up rooms and a medical office, as well as adding an accessibility lift and a complete update of the behavioral health wing.

HealthFirst relies in part on federal dollars to offer affordable health care options. Their mission is to “provide health care and a wide range of social services to all, regardless of their ability to pay.”

After the 2024 election, the portal the center used to apply for grants was “wiped clean,” Bolognani said, leaving few options. In May of 2025, Goodlander sent a letter to the congressional appropriations committee advocating for HealthFirst’s expansion; the center secured the funding a few months later.

“It’s such a net positive for New Hampshire, it’s such a net positive for the country,” Goodlander said. “The return on investment is huge here. I mean, this is going to allow for so much more care to happen right here in the community.”

In a roundtable discussion, HealthFirst employees, Franklin school leaders and other community health partners explained the financial challenges of providing quality patient care.

Lucy Grimard, director of revenue operations at HealthFirst, said insurance companies have always been difficult to deal with. Denied claims and delayed software fixes have cost HealthFirst millions of dollars, she said.

“If you are not looking and you are not digging every day, they will steal blind from us,” she said during the discussion. “You have to push and push and demand and demand until it becomes almost uncivil, emails that you’re sending to say, ‘Pay attention, because you owe us a lot of money.’”

A growing number of uninsured patients has also posed difficulties for HealthFirst. As a federally qualified health center, it is required to see all patients who seek care, regardless of health insurance status. In the last year, the center experienced an 11% drop in insured patients.

Director of Operations Stacey Benoit said a number of patients contacted HealthFirst at the start of the year to ask for their prescription to not be refilled because they could not afford it. One patient on a psychiatric medication messaged Benoit and said they needed to choose feeding their family over paying for their expensive prescription.

“It’s real,” she said during the discussion. “It’s happening every day.”

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and former Rep. Annie Kuster also secured funds for the project totaling $1.45 million.

The project is still short by at least $300,000 in funding, according to Bolognani. He said he hopes to eventually bridge that discrepancy with community donations, but for now, the center has acquired loans to temporarily cover the cost.

The project is set to break ground on May 4 and will take about a year to complete. Bolognani said it will cause some disruptions to patient care during that time, but he expects the center to stay open.

“We’re in a moment where it’s a crisis for community health centers, and it requires creativity and creating new tools to be able to advocate on their behalf,” Goodlander said. “Every dollar I can fight for, I’m going to fight for it in every way I can.”

https://www.concordmonitor.com/2026/02/19/healthfirst-renovation-expansion-grant