In 1992, Dr. Terry Cromwell, a prominent Lafayette plastic surgeon, founded the Lafayette Community Health Care Clinic. As then-president of the Lafayette Parish Medical Society, Dr. Cromwell and members of the Medical Society organized a community-wide effort to establish the Clinic in response to a growing population of working families with no health insurance. The Clinic was the first of its kind in the State of Louisiana and has been the flagship for the provision of comprehensive health care to uninsured workers across the state by mentoring five other communities in establishing their own clinics.

In 1998, the Clinic formed a collaborative partnership with ULL and LSU School of Dentistry that has resulted in a joint degree program that educates and trains dental hygienists while providing free dental hygiene services to the community. Senior Dental students from the LSU School of Dentistry rotate through the Clinic, providing expanded dental care twice weekly. A collaborative partnership with the LSU School of Medicine provides Family Practice and Internal Medicine residents who provide primary medical care to Clinic patients.

In 2000, the Clinic moved from its location on Jomella Street to its current location in the old St. Anne's Infirmary. The Clinic secured a private donation of $200,000 to be matched by efforts of the community to purchase the facility.

On an annual operating budget that has grown from $150,000 to $636,000 the Clinic has provided health care services valued at over $8 million to more than 8,400 unduplicated working residents of Lafayette Parish.

The Clinic originally opened its doors to serve as an emergent health care facility for local residents who could not afford to lose a day of work. Quickly, the Clinic became the primary provider of long term medical care for most of its patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, asthma, and anxiety.

Over the years, through cultivation of collaborative partnerships with state universities, service providers, the public school system and other non-profit agencies, the range of services offered by the Clinic have included general medical, dental and pharmaceutical care, women's health care services (annual exams, mammograms, etc.), preventive eye care for diabetic and hypertensive patients, nutritional counseling, dental hygiene, restorative dental care, skin cancer screenings, prostate cancer screenings, exercise programs, foot care clinics for diabetics,  sports physical clinics for school-aged children, dental sealant and hygiene clinics for underserved youth, facility tours, and hygiene and healthy eating education for area kindergarteners.