In 2015, the first Kind Clinic was established in Austin, Texas. The operation’s goal is to provide sexual health services to all who need it, especially those with problems that may typically block this type of care, such as financial issues. The Kind Clinic specializes in working to uplift the LGBTQ+ community.
Since the first Kind Clinic was established, it has expanded across Central Texas with two Austin locations, a Dallas location and a location in Downtown San Antonio.
The Paisano had the opportunity to speak with Juan Benitez, chief advancement officer at Texas Health Action and the Kind Clinic.
One of the most popular sexual health services the Kind Clinic provides is access to pre-exposure prophylaxis, more commonly known as PrEP.
“PrEP is an acronym, the much bigger term is pre-exposure prophylaxis. So it’s a daily medication that someone can take that reduces their risk of contracting HIV by 99%,” Benitez said. “Now, we specifically focus on reaching LGBTQ individuals because we know those are the communities that are disproportionately impacted by HIV transmissions.”
“When we look at PrEP and health care for LGBTQ individuals, what we’ve had to do as the Kind Clinic and why we’ve proven to be such a successful resource for the communities that we serve is that we put in the additional work of what it takes to remove all of those barriers to care for someone,” Benitez said. “[The Kind Clinic] now provides care to 25,000 people across the state of Texas. One of the departments that [the clinic has] is our patient support services department. That team specifically focuses on keeping those patients in care, to begin with. It’s where we remove barriers to care if you have insurance or you don’t have insurance, we’re able to provide financial assistance. That’s where our PrEP retention team lives.”
The Kind Clinic offers various sexual wellness services and works with all budgets. For more information on their operations in Central Texas, visit kindclinic.org.
