COEUR d'ALENE - Sen. Mike Crapo visited the Coeur d'Alene Dirne Family Practice Center Thursday and learned they are seeing a rising demand for services.

After touring the facility, Crapo sat with Mike Baker, Dirne Community Health Center CEO and others to discuss services provided by DCHC and the role they play in community health care.

"The service you're doing is being performed admirably, and you can see here that you are making absolute perfect use out of every square-inch of space," the Republican said, looking around the small room cluttered with desks and case-files that reached toward the ceiling.

DCHC services include a primary medical clinic, mental health center and a cooperative network of local dentists. They offer a sliding-fee scale based on income and family size for uninsured individuals and are part of the IPCA, which represent 13 Community Health Centers with 35 sites across Idaho.

In 2009, the DCHC served more than 8,000 patients, a 17 percent increase over 2008. Homeless patients increased by 48 percent and the total number of patient visits increased 14 percent.

Dirne is also seeing an increase in the number of seniors who are unable to find medical care because many providers in the community are not accepting new Medicare patients.

Dirne is not a free clinic, but officials said patients will never be denied care based on their inability to pay for services.

"We're here chipping away at the problem and trying to do the best we can," Baker said.

Crapo said he supports expanding community health centers statewide because they are a large part of addressing health care issues of access and cost.

He said he believes they are a more efficient approach than some of the ideas being considered by the federal government at this time.