Sunday, May 4, 2025
5/4/2025
Fiscal Year 2025 Expanded Hours. - Project Title: CASSE Expanded Hours HRSA-25-084 Amount Requested: $500,000 Applicant: Council for the Advancement of Social Services and Education HRSA 330 Grant: H80CS26579 Project Director: Beth Chumley Email Address: bchumley@casseusa.com Phone: (318) 688-3350 Address: 2120 Bert Kouns Industrial Loop, Shreveport, LA 71118 Website: www.casseusa.com ABSTRACT Council for the Advancement of Social Services and Education (CASSE), an established 501(c)(3) non-profit healthcare organization located in northwest Louisiana, is requesting Expanded Hours grant funding for the 2-year project period as a currently funded section 330 (e) Community Health Center (CHC) FQHC. CASSE operates six (6), permanent, year-round, comprehensive preventive/primary care Form 5B service delivery sites plus one (1) mobile unit and one (1) administrative office in northwest Louisiana. The health center provides a full range of primary medical care, dental health, behavioral health (MH, SUD, OUD), preventive, and enabling services to the service area’s low-income vulnerable, medically underserved population located in Federally-designated Medically Underserved Area/Populations (MUA/P). Over half (53%) of our patient population is of racial/ethnic minority origin, the majority, which are Hispanic/Latino population (4%) and Black/African American (42%). A large uninsured/underinsured population (9%), and increasing numbers of Medicaid and Medicare patients are cared for by CASSE. Forty two percent of the 22-zip code population that comprises CASSE’s Primary Service Area (PSA) of urban cities and rural towns in Caddo, DeSoto & Bossier parishes (counties) are low-income (61,852) across all ages and races/ethnicities, of which about half are living in poverty below 100% of FPL. Delayed care in our PSA is frequently the result of barriers such as lack of health insurance, lack of access to transportation, lack of availability of appointments, and inability to take time off work to attend appointments. CASSE’s Expanded Hours (EH) project will use EH funding to help alleviate barriers by expanding access (a Healthy People 2030 goal) to high-quality primary care, mental health care, and substance use care by increasing hours of operations on weekday evenings and Saturdays at 2 service sites to meet identified patient and community needs when access to primary care may otherwise be limited or nonexistent. The services sites are 2120 Bert Kouns Industrial Loop Ste K-L, Shreveport, LA 71118 (Urban Caddo parish) and 149 Stone Creek Rd, Stonewall, LA 71078 (Rural DeSoto parish). EH funding will support patients to receive care in our CASSE primary care setting, reducing visits to hospital emergency departments (ED), thereby reducing healthcare costs and preserving ED capacity for patients with acute needs. CASSE’s EH project will increase the number of primary medical and behavioral health patients and visits (new and follow-up patients) at the 2 sites by increasing access hours weekly at each site by 16 hours, and annually by 832 additional hours at each site. EH providers across the sites will be 1.97 FTE, providing 3,184 EH visits to 882 patients (10% NEW). Our proposed additional personnel dedicated to the EH project at the 2 service sites for the additional hours, includes: Physician -.96 FTE, .5 FTE Psych NP, .51 FTE LPC, and Other Staff of Medical/Support Services – 2.82 FTE for a Total of 4.79 FTEs EH providers and staff. In addition to EH expanded hours and staff, we plan to add 2.03 FTE providers during current hours funded with EH program income generated producing 4,776 additional visits to 1,323 patients (10% NEW) annually. We are requesting $500,000 annually of EH funding to support the expanded hours and services across the 2 locations on weekday evenings and Saturdays.
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).