Community health centers financed by the federal government in at least 10 states undergo delays that access their funds, forcing some to close and others to contemplate the closures, PBS News told PBS.
PBS confirmed that health centers in Arizona, Virginie, Maine, Nebraska, Illinois, Michigan, Vermont, Rhode Island, Montana and Minnesota could not, at least temporarily, access the funds. The centers of Maine and Montana again receive their funding.
Vacheria Keys, Associate Vice-President of the National Policy and Regulatory Affairs of the National Association of Community Health Centers, said that delays started last Tuesday after the administration published a service note putting a freeze on the coverage on the Financing of grants, which was then canceled. Two federal judges blocked the frost until the pending dispute continues to move forward.
Community health centers see more than 32 million people a year, including one in five rural American, according to Advocates for Community Health (ACH), an organization of non -partisan membership of community health centers. More than 500,000 people work in these centers across the country, he said in a statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qpsnszit4U
Lisa Desjardins reports on the destabilizing effect that the freezing freezing had on a wide range of programs despite legal interventions.
“Community health centers offer high-quality primary and preventive care, dental care, behavioral health and drug addiction services and low-cost prescription drugs,” he wrote. “When health centers close, people with chronic conditions are missing appointments, pregnant women lacked prenatal visits and behavioral health services are interrupted, worsening results and increasing costs for the whole health care system. “
CHCs, which receive a combination of federal subsidies, Medicaid and private insurance reimbursements, generally write their federal funds on a monthly basis, connecting to a portal to request the action. But for centers that undergo delays, the portal shows their request as “pending”.
“Many health centers have limited species at hand, and many of them rely on the possibility of regulating access to federal financing, it is like a bank account. They use it to be able to do administrative things to pay. But it is a process that has never really been disturbed at this level, “said Keys.
Although Keys did not speculate on the reasons why it happened, she said that the managers of the community health center across the country had rushed to the site to try to reduce all their funds before the freeze declared financing. There is generally not such a deadline for leading funds.
This does not happen to all community health centers; Some have been able to access their federal funds without problem. The main thing is that officials do not know why it happens at all, nor why it happens to certain centers and not others, and they say that agency officials have not been very reactive by explaining Why.
“We understand that some users of the payment management system (PMS) have experienced technical problems,” said HHS in a statement to PBS News. “The system is underway now, but users can experience delays due to the high volume of requests. HHS works in the program support center to help accelerate resolution as quickly as possible. »»
Being without access to community financing has “a direct impact on the capacity (of centers”) to serve their patients, their staff and their communities, “said Amanda Pears Kelly, CEO at Advocates for Community Health, adding that” financing of Community health centers are trying to access has been authorized and appropriate by the congress and obliged by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). »»
The CEO of the Minnesota Association of Community Health Centers, Jonathan Watson, said that one of the 16 community health centers of the State was unable to access the funds until Thursday afternoon. “This does not give us much confidence in our ability to plan the future, and even less to meet the pay,” he said.
Ted Varipatis, spokesperson for the Penobscot Community Health Center in Maine, who had temporarily lost access to the funds, said: “This illustrated the fragility of the land on which PCHC walks.”
Managers of the Community Health Center are all in Washington, DC this week and spent time on Thursday on Capitol Hill putting pressure on the members of the Congress on this problem and others.
In Virginia, 11 of the 31 health centers of the 31 Commonwealth members experienced disruption in reducing their funding this week, according to the spokesperson for Virginia Community Healthcare Association, Joe Stevens. The Richmond Center had to completely close three of the doors of its locations and return patients to other locations, as these clinics use federal funding for employees, and they had no reserves. Virginia Public Media reported on Tuesday the disruption of payments and services.
Stevens said VCHA had developed its members when the disturbances began to operate without these funds. The answers varied between 100 days and six to eight months, depending on the amount of the center budget comes from the grant.
He said it was the first time that a center of the state had to temporarily close its doors due to inaccessible funds.