Saturday, May 3, 2025
5/3/2025
Health Center Program - Community Health Net (CHN) has been the preeminent resource for primary care services for the underserved and uninsured population of Erie County for over 45 years. Serving 1 in 6 residents of the City of Erie and addressing such regional issues as the high diabetes rates (which is above the national average), soaring rates of obesity and increasing hypertension rates (above state averages). The Section 330 Funding of the HRSA-25-017 Service Area Competition Grant will allow CHN to continue the mission: To improve the quality of life in our region by providing professional healthcare services, with compassion, respect, and dignity to all. CHN is committed to providing its services to the Erie area to increase the number of patients served to beyond 13,700 by continuing to offer sliding fee discounts, transportation services, outreach and education and primary care services. CHN was incorporated on January 30, 1985, as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) to provide services to the medically underserved and uninsured population in Erie County, PA. The organization has remained a medical safety net to the citizens of our region by providing medical and dental care, gynecological, pharmaceutical, behavioral health, and vision care services to the citizens of our County. In 2023 CHN provided over 37,083 service encounters to 13,698 of its 20,000 unique patients. We also provide case management enabling services like transportation and insurance enrollment assistance to reduce barriers to care. The 330-grant funding will allow us to continue providing those services to the northwestern PA region. 20% of CHN patients are best served in a language other than English. Over 557 hours has been devoted to their care in interpretation time alone. In CY2023 of the patients known, 89% were living at or below 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL), 67% living at or below 100% of the FPL. The payor mix for the patient population is: 60% Medicaid, 12% uninsured, 12% private insurance, and 16% were covered by Medicare. Of the 13,698 patients treated at CHN in 2023, 1,089 were treated under the Healthcare for the Homeless grant. CHN’s Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) program included 2,471 medical visits, 701 dental visits, 205 optometry visits, 239 standalone Mental Health Service visits for those 1,089 patients in 2023. CHN has recently initiated a “Virtual Community Care” (VCC) initiative to expand the reach of our HCH program. This initiative, similar to standard street medicine, allows teams of clinical staff to outreach to those patients’ experiencing homelessness and to go where the need is. The physicians and certified nurse practitioners remain at their respective office locations and conduct virtual visits with the clinical staff acting as their hands in the field. The use of digital medical equipment allows the remote provider to assess and diagnose as if the patient was in the office setting. This innovative approach makes better use of provider time by treating the VCC patient as a walk-in on demand patient. CHN has 8.5 FTE Medical Providers, 5 FTE Dental Providers, .2 FTE Vision Providers and 4 Behavioral Health Providers. CHN services are provided at: The Daniel S. Snow, MD Health Center, Harborcreek Health Center, John Horan Garden Dental, and Community Health Net Dental, all in Erie, PA. CHN also provides services at Harborcreek Youth Services and Girard School-Based Health Center, in Girard PA. CHN is currently in negotiations to open a new office located in a zip code area that only has a health center penetration rate of 46%. This addition to our service sites will greatly improve access to quality healthcare to predominately public housing residents. CHN is very aware of the use of area maps and zip codes to identify likely areas of unmet needs. For example, the main site with multiple-disciplines is located in zip code 16501, which repeatedly is listed as the poorest zip code in the nation and state.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).