Austin American-Statesman

People's Community Clinic CEO Regina Rogoff retiring after two fruitful decades in Austin

By Nicole Villalpando, Austin American-Statesman,

2024-08-01

Regina Rogoff walks the halls of People's Community Clinic's main campus on Camino La Costa in Northeast Austin. She shows you where the new dental clinic is; the pain management clinic; the auditorium where yoga or Zumba classes have been held; the space for cooking classes; the adult, adolescent and pediatrics clinics; and the desks where social workers and finance staffers make sure no one is ever turned away from getting care at People's.

She greets every staff member with a smile, and she greets patients, too. And she tells you where all the best snacks are hidden in the two-story clinic.

"It's part of my exercise," Rogoff said of walking the halls. "You get spiteful if you're always at your desk."

The chief executive officer of the health clinic, which has been federally qualified since 2003, loves this building, which was completed in 2016.

"We wanted this building to be something to honor the staff and the patients," she said.

"We want them to feel they are in the best medical facility they could be at."

After 21 years as the head of People's, Rogoff has announced her retirement at the end of the year. She will turn 76 this month.

"I've put it off for a long time," she said, but now "I feel like I have a legacy to be very proud of. It's reached a point where I don't feel like I need to be here."

Building on People's roots

People's, which began as People's Free Clinic in a church basement in 1970 as a way for mostly homeless youths and University of Texas students to get free health care, has grown into a three-clinic community treasure that provides care on a sliding scale to people who otherwise would not be able to afford it .

Rogoff was one of the early volunteers as a UT law student.

"Even then it was a labor of love," she said.

She grew up in a family of volunteers, including her father, who was a dentist and volunteered for many years at a children's hospital.

Rogoff could not have imagined then that People's would grow into what it is today. It now sees more than 20,000 patients a year and receives $34 million annually in federal money, grants and private donations.

Many of the patients would not otherwise have access to primary care and would have to rely on an emergency room for care. Others are able to use their Medical Access Program card, for people making 200% of the federal poverty level or less; that program is offered by Central Health, Travis County's hospital district. People's also takes Medicaid, Medicare and Children's Health Insurance Program benefits. For those with no insurance, a sliding scale based on their income is applied.

Caring for people who would not otherwise have medical care "is in the soul of People's," Rogoff said. "It's in our genes."

A life of service leading up to People's

After Rogoff graduated from law school, she went to work as a pro bono attorney at Legal Aid of Central Texas. For 10 years she helped people with landlord disputes, divorces, child custody — any civil case.

"It prepared me to understand the importance of health care to low-income people," Rogoff said of Legal Aid. "Everybody deserves to be treated with dignity and respect."

Then Rogoff stepped out of the courthouse for the next 20 years and became the executive director for Legal Aid.

Through Legal Aid, Rogoff learned how to lead a nonprofit, and she believes that is why she was chosen by People's to become its next leader in 2003. While Legal Aid shaped her commitment to working with people with lower incomes, her leadership skills were honed in volunteering, especially as a lay leader with Austin Interfaith, she said.

"It really gave me insight into the importance of relationships," she said. "Listening to people is always important. It's the cornerstone."

For Dr. Louis Appel, who has been with People's for 25 years, 20 of those as the chief medical officer, "she was just the best boss and partner I could have asked for."

The first thing Rogoff did when she arrived, Appel said, was to have meetings with all of the staff members individually and talk to them about what motived them.

"She's a tremendous leader," he said. "A big part of that is her relational manner."

At People's she has built relationships with St. David's Foundation, which was a major funder of the building and continues to be a major funder of People's day-to-day work. She's worked with state politicians and the federal government. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, recently secured $850,000 in government funding to allow People's to update its electronic records system to be more user-friendly for its clients and staff.

"She's one of the most trusted people in Austin," said Milton Hime, a former People's Community Clinic board member and the building architect for the new clinic.

Board Chair Fred Blackman said that "anywhere I go with her, everyone knows her. It doesn't matter where we are. ... It's like walking around with a superstar."

And when she walks the halls of People's, she'll talk to anyone, Blackman said.

"She's concerned about everyone," he said. "She has a heart for the people, a heart for the needs of everyone she comes in contact with."

Transforming People's

When Rogoff arrived in 2003 as the next leader, People's was a very different place. It was in one location with about 60 employees. Now it has the Center for Women's Health in its old location near St. David's Medical Center, the main campus building on Camino La Costa where most of its services are, and a clinic in the Manor school district. People's has almost 350 employees.

"She's overseen a tremendous amount of growth," Appel said.

The biggest misconception about People's has been that the doctors are all volunteers, Rogoff said, and while that was true in the early days, all the medical staffers now are People's employees and are trained and certified to practice in their specialty.

Running a large clinic for all takes money, and it was Rogoff's job to secure the funding. She saw becoming a federally qualified health center in 2012 as the way to keep the clinic open.

As a federally qualified health center, People's has to follow a set of federal rules, including a complete change in the leadership of the clinic — 51% of its board must be people who receive its services. Many of the philanthropists who were on the board before the change became members of People's Foundation — its philanthropic arm. The governing board then became more reflective of People's patients.

Blackman started out as a patient at the end of 2014 after being in the hospital for five months after a car crash .

"Every good thing that has happened to me is at the clinic or because of the clinic," he said. He includes his marriage, after Rogoff encouraged him to go for it and date the woman who became his wife.

The need for a new location

With more funding, People's expanded its programs and was outgrowing its location at 2909 N. Interstate 35. It needed to find a new space, and over the course of 10 years, Rogoff took Hime on a journey to see every ugly building near I-35.

"She has a quality that you can't tell her no," Hime said. "She has a certain thing in her eye that you can't resist. She could get me to do whatever she asked me to do because I trust her."

When they found the building on Camino La Costa, Rogoff thought it looked like something out of Communist Russia: utilitarian and boring. But Hime had a vision and built beautiful glass lobbies onto the building to hide its austerity.

This new building has allowed People's to expand its services across generations: prenatal, pediatric, adolescent and adult clinics. People's also has added behavioral health, dentistry and pain management.

The building became a community space for the Sustainable Food Center to host cooking classes, the Central Texas Food Bank to have a food pantry on site, Half Helen to do vision screenings and the St. David's Foundation to bring its Big Pink Bus to do mammograms. Its staff also helps with sign-ups for benefits, including WIC and SNAP food help, as well as Medicaid, CHIP and Medicare.

Trying new things

One of the things Rogoff loves about People's is its ability to experiment.

"We want to be a model," she said.

In 2013, People's began the Austin Medical-Legal Partnership with the Texas Legal Services Center. That has helped patients with legal services that are affecting their health. One example was a baby who was coming in with insect bites. They could treat the baby, but the bites would keep happening. The partnership lawyer wrote a letter to the landlord to put screens on the windows and doors to keep the insects out. That worked.

Blackman also benefited from the partnership when his insurance didn't want to pay for an MRI. The lawyer made a phone call, and his MRI was approved.

The program blends Rogoff's two passions, law and health care. The People's board was skeptical of it at first, but Rogoff found a law fellow who could do the program free for a year as a pilot. Its success made it a permanent program.

"She's brought in the notion of what People's Community Clinic is ," Appel said. " It's about improving people's health and not just providing health care."

In 2018, People's added an integrated pain management program, which includes acupuncture. In 2019, it started a dental program with a van, but now it has seven dental pods inside the building.

Rogoff has encouraged the staff to embrace the experiments, and when something doesn't work, "she's never claimed to be perfect," Appel said. "One of the things I've loved about her as a leader is she's always been willing to make course corrections."

What's next for Rogoff and for People's?

The board is conducting a national search and hopes to have a successor named by the end of the year. Rogoff will be part of the search and will mentor the next leader. A candidate also could emerge from the existing team.

"I think we have a great team," Rogoff said. "They are all committed to the vision." The team is so good, she said, that "people might not even notice when I'm gone."

Appel hopes the new leader will take a page from Rogoff and honor, support and nurture the relationships that have been built.

"Dignity is at the center," he said.

"The clinic will not be the same without her, but it will continue," Appel said. "She's put us in a good place."

For Rogoff, her plan is to do what she usually does. If it's a Wednesday or Friday, she'll be up at 4 a.m. to go rowing on Lady Bird Lake. She's also planning trips with her daughter and her husband to see all the state capitols. They've already been to half.

"I'll probably look around for someplace to volunteer," she said. She already plans to join her daughter as an usher at Zach Theatre.

She joked that she might just come to People's anyway and stand in the corner and watch the goings-on.

"Maybe they'll hire me on as a tour guide," she said.

Continuing to grow People's

Rogoff can see even more growth in People's future. Right now there is not a full-service pharmacy or optometry, she said. The Center for Women's Health will have to move because of construction on I-35. It might be able to take spaces at St. David's Medical Center and create even more of a partnership.

People's always will have to be flexible and forward-thinking. It has been at the forefront of helping its patients get reenrolled in Medicaid or CHIP during the Medicaid unwinding process, in which all recipients had to verify again that they qualified for the programs and many people unexpectedly lost health coverage.

"There's always some issue," she said.

Leading this organization for 21 years has been "one of my greatest joys," Rogoff said.

"I'm a very luck person. I've had a great life. I've been blessed."