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  • New Survey Examines the Provision of Family Planning Services by Community Health Centers

    News Release

    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. This finding suggests that community health centers may be challenged to fill the void if Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest network of freestanding family…

  • Health Insurance Coverage and Access to Care for Low-Income Non-Citizen Adults

    Issue Brief

    This brief analyzes health insurance coverage and access for low-income non-citizen adults and discusses provider insights into the obstacles this population faces in obtaining coverage and receiving care. Overall, non-citizen adults account for just under one-fourth of all non-elderly uninsured adults. Low-income uninsured adults are at particularly high risk for being uninsured due to very limited access to both private and public coverage. The brief finds that, largely due to their high uninsured rate, low-income…

  • A Profile of Community Health Center Patients: Implications for Policy

    Issue Brief

    Community health centers are a key source of primary care in underserved areas. Their role will grow as coverage expands under the ACA. To sharpen understanding of the health center patient population, this brief compares them to the low-income population overall, using the Health Center Patient Survey and National Health Interview Survey. The pre-ACA profile of health center patients that emerges sets the stage for measuring change and highlights important implications of states’ Medicaid expansion…

  • Impact of Shifting Immigration Policy on Medicaid Enrollment and Utilization of Care among Health Center Patients

    Issue Brief

    On August 14, 2019, the Trump administration published a final rule to broaden the programs the federal government will consider in public charge determinations to include Medicaid coverage for non-pregnant adults and certain previously excluded nutrition and housing programs. To learn about the possible early effects of the public charge rule and other immigration policies on patients at community health centers, this brief draws on interviews and survey data to capture health center directors’ and…

  • Community Health Centers: Growing Importance in a Changing Health Care System

    Issue Brief

    Community health centers provide essential access to comprehensive primary care in underserved communities. This issue brief describes health centers and their patients in 2016 and examines changes in access to care and utilization of services by health center patients following implementation of the ACA coverage expansions in 2014.

  • How Are Health Centers Responding to the Funding Delay?

    Fact Sheet

    Community health centers see over 25 million patients in medically underserved rural and urban areas throughout the country. A key source of their federal funding expired September 30, 2017. This fact sheet looks at how health centers are responding to the funding delay and uncertainty.

  • Community Health Centers’ Role in Delivering Care to the Nation’s Underserved Populations During the Coronavirus Pandemic

    Issue Brief

    In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, community health centers are serving as public health responders, especially for medically underserved populations. Health centers are a national network of safety net primary care providers who provided care to nearly 30 million patients in 2019, and disproportionately serve patients who are low-income, persons of color, uninsured, or publicly insured – groups that have been especially hard hit by the pandemic. This brief examines how health centers have…

  • Survey Finds Many Primary Care Physicians Have Negative Views of the Use of Quality Metrics and Penalties for Unnecessary Hospital Readmissions 

    News Release

    Primary Care Providers View Health IT as Improving Quality, But Tilt Negatively on ACOs Half of the nation's primary care physicians view the increased use of quality-of-care metrics and financial penalties for unnecessary hospitalizations as potentially troubling for patient care, according to a new survey from The Commonwealth Fund and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Fifty percent of primary care physicians say the increased use of quality metrics to assess provider performance is having a negative…

  • Community Health Centers Are A Key Source of COVID-19 Rapid At-Home Self-Tests For Hard-To-Reach Groups

    Policy Watch

    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 in an Era of Health System Reform and Economic Downturn: Prospects and Challenges

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief reviews the role of community health centers in the nation's health care safety net. The centers provided comprehensive primary care to 16.1 million patients in 2007, many of them from lower-income families and medically underserved communities. The role of the centers is even more critical during an economic recession when families are more vulnerable to economic loss and unmet health needs. Issue Brief (.pdf)