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Adopting Denmark’s vaccine schedule, as HHS Secretary Kennedy's vaccine advisors have suggested, would likely lower childhood vaccination rates in the U.S. as certain vaccines become harder to access.
This brief draws on federal data and our 2016 survey of health centers to provide a 2015 profile of health centers, analyze recent changes in patient coverage and service capacity, and compare health centers in Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states. It also considers the implications of a repeal of the ACA for health centers and the low-income communities they serve.
Community health centers have seen a rise in patients seeking non-medical services such as housing, food, nutrition, and transportation during the pandemic and have added new mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services in response to growing need, according to a new KFF survey.
As part of an effort to promote equitable access to tests, the Biden administration launched a testing supply program that has set aside 25 million rapid at-home self-test kits for distribution by community health centers. Under the program, health centers will be distributing self-tests to patients and community members, with a focus on populations at greatest risk from adverse outcomes related to COVID-19.
Community health centers are an integral part of the health care safety-net, providing access to care for nearly 22 million people in underserved communities. The ACA established trust fund for health center growth, and with increased patient revenues attributable to expanded coverage, health centers’ grant funding to support care of the uninsured can go further. This brief provides a 2013 data profile of health centers; highlights pre-ACA differences between health centers in Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states; and considers financial challenges facing health centers and the implications of state Medicaid decisions, the outcome of King v. Burwell, and the approaching sunset of the special trust fund for health centers’ capacity to ensure access to care for the communities they serve.
A new national survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and George Washington University finds few of the nation’s community health centers report they can handle a significant increase in patients. Less than one in five clinics report that they could increase their patient caseload by 25 percent or more in the next year.
We examine the Biden administration’s proposal to partner with community health centers to speed up vaccinations, especially in hard-to-reach populations.
Although many people require treatment for both physical and behavioral health conditions, our physical and behavioral health systems typically operate independently, without coordination. Medicaid has a significant stake in addressing this issue because physical and behavioral health comorbidity rates among beneficiaries are high. This brief examines five promising approaches currently underway in Medicaid to better integrate physical and behavioral health care.
Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) programs, a subset of community health centers, play a significant role in addressing the opioid epidemic by providing medication-assisted treatment (MAT). MAT, which combines one of three medications (methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone) with behavioral therapies, is the standard of care for opioid use disorder (OUD). This brief presents findings from an analysis of health center data on the provision of buprenorphine-based MAT, as well as interviews with providers and administrators from 12 HCH programs about strategies they adopted to implement MAT programs.
Nearly half (47%) of community health centers report that many or some immigrant patients declined to enroll themselves in Medicaid in the past year, according to a new KFF survey, and nearly a third (32%) of centers say that some patients dropped or decided not to renew such coverage.
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