Policy & Regulation News

$101M ACA Health Center Funding Increases Healthcare Access

By Jacqueline DiChiara

- $101 million in Affordable Care Act funding will go toward the delivery of comprehensive primary health services at 164 new health center sites across 33 states. The objective of such funding – the New Access Point Grant Awards – is to increase 650,000 patients’ access to healthcare services.

Affordable Care Act

Such news stems from an announcement this week from the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Sylvia M. Burwell, who says health centers are the essential keystones of any community. Burwell’s announcement acts in direct tangent with the Senate’s recent 92 to 8 repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) and the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2).

Health centers provide quality preventative and primary healthcare independent of a beneficiary’s ability to pay. Roughly 7 percent of beneficiaries receive medical care through an HRSA-funded health center, according to HHS.

“For millions of Americans, including some of the most vulnerable individuals and families, health centers are the essential medical home where they find services that promote health, diagnose and treat disease and disability and help them cope with environmental challenges that put them at risk,” says HHS.

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  • Health centers are sizably impacting the healthcare industry. Since the Affordable Care Act’s implementation in 2010, health centers have incorporated over 43,000 new full-time staff members.

    “Health centers improve patient outcomes while reducing health disparities, despite serving a population that is often sicker and more at risk than the general population,” explains HHS. “They also reduce costs to health systems; the health center model of care has been shown to reduce the use of costlier providers of care, such as emergency departments and hospitals,” HHS confirms.

    With the primary objectives of serving medically underserved populations via strong financial management, most health centers rely on grant funding for 20 percent of their operating revenue, says HHS. The 80 percent of remaining funds is generated from Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and patient fees.

    “Health centers provide an accessible and dependable source of culturally competent primary care for many of the newly insured,” confirms Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Acting Administrator Jim Macrae. “More people have insurance in the United States than ever before,” he adds.

    Under the Affordable Care Act, 550 new health centers have opened within the past four years. Approximately 1,300 health centers currently manage 9,000 service delivery sites which provide care to 22 million patients. This number of patients has increased by 5 million since 2009.

    “The Affordable Care Act has led to unprecedented increases in access to health insurance.  Part of building on that progress is connecting people to the care they need,” states Burwell. “Today’s awards will enable more individuals and families to have access to the affordable, quality health care that health centers provide. That includes the preventive and primary care services that will keep them healthy.”

    The effects of the grant are widespread. California received the most awards – 23 in total – to serve a proposed 117,582 new patients via an award of over $14M. Ohio placed second with a total of 12 awards received to serve a proposed 43,461 new patients with the aid of over $7M.

    Health centers are especially valuable because they reduce costs to health systems while improving patient outcomes despite serving a medically unstable beneficiary population, maintains HHS.