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Community health centers play an important role in providing care to uninsured and low-income individuals living in medically underserved communities. They rely on many different revenue sources and, over time, Medicaid has become a central source of funding for most health centers.
Staffing to administer the COVID-19 vaccines is now the most common challenge for community health centers' vaccination programs, overtaking the previously reported vaccine supply challenges.
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 are a national network of safety-net primary care providers serving low-income, medically underserved communities. Based on findings from a national survey of health centers, this brief examines how the pandemic has affected health center patients and services as well as the ongoing challenges health centers and their patients face.
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, emerging evidence suggests drug overdoses, including opioid overdoses, are increasing. As safety net primary care providers, community health centers play a significant role in efforts to address the ongoing opioid crisis and have become a major source of medication-assisted treatment (MAT), the standard of care for those with opioid use disorder (OUD). This issue brief presents findings from a 2019 survey of community health centers on activities related to the prevention and treatment of OUD, with a focus on MAT, to assess services and capacity prior to the recent surge in need.
With so many Americans dying, and so many more suffering severe economic hardship, it’s hard to look over the horizon at the larger questions the COVID-19 crisis will bring. The current emergency requires everyone’s attention 24/7. But an emerging set of questions will fall right in the bailiwick of the health policy community.
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.
Community health centers provide comprehensive primary care services in some of the most underserved communities in the nation. This brief summarizes findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation/Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health Policy 2018 Health Center Survey to provide a snapshot of health centers’ outreach and enrollment activities as well as changes in service capacity, and overall financial condition since implementation of the ACA.
This brief reports on community health center patients, services, experiences, and financing in 2023 and analyzes changes from 2019 (pre-pandemic) through 2023 using data from the Uniform Data System (UDS) and the 2022 Health Center Patient Survey.
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.
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