Value-Based Care News

HHS Awards $107M to Health Centers for Low-Cost, Value-Based Care

This year’s Quality Improvement Awards for HRSA-funded health centers recognized excellence in providing cost-efficient, value-based care.

Health centers and value-based care

Source: Thinkstock

By Jacqueline LaPointe

- HHS recently awarded nearly $107 million to 1,273 health centers across the country to support quality improvement, as well as care efficiency and value-based care, according to an official announcement.

Funded through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the awards aim to help health centers ranking in the top one to two percent in key areas – behavioral health, diabetes prevention and management, and heart health – continue to deliver cost-efficient care delivery while improving quality, HHS said.

“HRSA-funded health centers continue to lead the US healthcare system in providing quality, value-based care to their communities,” HRSA Acting Secretary Tom Engels stated in the announcement. “Today we are recognizing nearly all HRSA-funded health centers for their continued improvements on clinical quality measures and supporting them to continue as quality leaders nationwide in the years to come.”

This year’s recipients are also being recognized for their efforts to address two of the nation’s most pressing healthcare issues: the opioid crisis and HIV epidemic, HHS stated.

Health centers screened nearly 1.1 million individuals for substance use disorder and provided medication-assisted treatment to almost 95,000 patients nationwide, the department reported.

Additionally, HRSA-funded health centers played a key role in the White House’s Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, which the Trump Administration launched earlier this year to address the ongoing public health crisis.

HHS reported that the health centers provided over 2.4 million HIV tests to more than 2 million patients last year. The centers also provide care to one in six patients diagnosed with HIV.

“America's health centers are essential to producing results on our actionable public health challenges, like HIV/AIDS and the opioid crisis, as well as to building a healthcare system that delivers better value and puts the patient at the center,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in the announcement.

Award recipients plan to use the funds build on their 2018 achievements, including reducing health disparities, increasing the number of patients served and their access to comprehensive services, advancing health IT use, and delivering patient-centered care.

“These awards symbolize Community Health Centers’ longstanding commitment to the over half a million patients they serve,” said Jillian Hudspeth, President and CEO of New Jersey Primary Care Association, which had 20 member health centers receive Quality Improvement Awards this year.

This year, six of NJPCA’s health centers earned awards for enhancing access, 14 for advancing health IT for quality, nine for clinically quality improvement, six for reducing health disparities, 17 for becoming patient-centered medical homes, and two for enhancing value.

California, the country’s most populous state, received the most awards, with 158 health centers earning a total of $15.3 million. About $135,000 of that went to five health centers for their efforts to enhance care value.