About Sia’s Place Wellness Center
Sia’s Place Wellness Center (SPWC) is a Fresno, California-based nonprofit providing comprehensive maternal health, education, and services to address health-related social needs for young and underserved mothers and families. The center offers culturally tailored programs, blending traditional Hmong and Hispanic practices with modern perinatal, postpartum, and preventive care.
What began as a small doula program has evolved into a thriving community hub, offering additional Community Health Worker (CHW) services, resource navigation, and education. Many families connect with SPWC to access diapers, formula, or clothes for the family, leading to the delivery of health assessments and education, and addressing other social needs. These clients later come back for doula services.
They also partner with local organizations, many of which are also utilizing Pear Suite, such as Valley Children’s Hospital, Black Infant Health (BIH), CA Perinatal Collaborative, Mommy’s Helper, Shine Together, Fresno City College, and Central Valley Regional Center, to support programs, including their car seat and safety classes and their basic needs department.
The Challenge
As a new and rapidly growing organization, Sia’s Place Wellness Center faced major hurdles in funding and billing. While the team was already delivering CHW and doula services, they lacked a system to document, track, and bill for their work with local health plans, including Anthem Blue Cross, CalViva, and Kaiser Permanente.
For nearly six months, the team manually tracked services while juggling grant applications and fundraising. Without a clear reimbursement process, the organization risked burnout and financial instability.
The Solution
SPWC onboarded to Pear Suite’s care navigation and billing platform. Within weeks, the team began using the tool to document CHW encounters, manage client assessments, and automatically generate compliant claims.
Pear Suite also helped Sia’s Place integrate both doula and CHW billing, a unique need for organizations that deliver maternal health and social support services together.
When the need for their services grew, they could support it with consistent reimbursement, the ability to document every encounter, make referrals when additional needs arose, and navigate health plan and state requirements with confidence.
The Results
Since adopting Pear Suite, Sia’s Place Wellness Center has transformed from a primarily doula-based organization to a comprehensive CHW hub serving diverse family needs.
- Provided doula care and CHW services to 257 community members, and most commonly, health education and postpartum support.
- Helped uncover social needs for 220 community members using built-in screening tools.
- Shifted service model and billing model from doula-only to combined doula and CHW services, increasing reimbursement opportunities.
- Automated reimbursement through Pear Suite’s billing system.
- Streamlined documentation, allowing staff to record encounters and referrals in real time.
- Used built-in assessments to uncover social needs like WIC access, food insecurity, and housing support.
- Tracked utilization and outcomes, demonstrating impact to funders and partners.
“Pear Suite gave us a way to combine everything—our doula work, CHW outreach, and even car seat safety classes—into one system that made sense.” – Sia Xiong-Lopez, Founder and Board President, Sia’s Place Wellness Center
With a strong foundation in place, Sia’s Place Wellness Center is positioning itself as a regional hub for maternal and family health in Fresno County. They’ve also been able to expand their mental health programs for teen parents, secure sustainable funding and partnerships for their car seat program and start a dad’s program to support soon-to-be fathers as well as mothers and babies.
