Saturday, December 21, 2024
12/21/2024
Peninsula Community Health Services of Alaska, Inc. (PCHS), FAIN# H8001139, serves all communities in the Central Kenai Peninsula Borough. PCHS requests grant funding to increase the number of patients receiving mental health services and substance use disorder (SUD) services, including patients receiving Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD). The community needs addressed in our proposal are increased availability of mental health and SUD/MOUD treatment to members of our community encountering barriers to care including: 1. Financial insecurity (including uninsured/underinsured patients who are unable to pay for care out of pocket), 2. Lack of access to care (no provider for the services in the community, or publicly insured patients with few or no providers in the community accepting that payor), 3. Stigma and discrimination for patients seeking and accessing treatment, 4. Lack of access to transportation to come to appointments, and 5. Social risk factors including food insecurity, unstable housing, lack of or limited health insurance, and linguistic barriers. Financial insecurity and lack of access to care can be addressed by increasing the number of PCHS clinical staff including medical providers who deliver SUD/MOUD services within our existing primary care clinic as part of their routine schedule, increasing the number of PCHS behavioral health clinicians who can deliver mental health services by warm handoff in our existing primary care clinic, and increasing salaries for our existing behavioral health clinicians to promote retention of those clinicians in an increasingly competitive market. PCHS will also recruit an MOUD Nurse Manager to oversee and coordinate care needs for patients receiving SUD/MOUD services such as transportation, mental health care, referral tracking, care coordination, medication tracking, and program compliance. Stigma and discrimination can be addressed in similar ways. Under our current behavioral heal th integrated care model, PCHS delivers initial mental health services within a primary care clinic; this increases the patient’s willingness to engage in these services and removes any stigma and discrimination associated with receiving the care in another area of the building. The stigma and discrimination associated with SUD/MOUD services can be addressed the same way. Our single-desk check-in model ensures patients who are making SUD/MOUD appointments are checking in for routine appointments in our primary care clinic without those appointments being identified as SUD/MOUD by the wording on our front door, by the identified specialty of an individual provider, or by the area of the building where the patient checks in. Lack of access to transportation for appointments can be addressed by purchasing tokens from local taxi services and utilizing those for mental health and SUD/MOUD patients who lack transportation to these appointments. Social risk factors such as food insecurity, unstable housing, lack of or limited health insurance, and linguistic barriers can be addressed by the recruitment of a manager to implement in-depth registration screening and oversee existing Eligibility Specialists to ensure social determinants of health are screened and addressed in a coordinated method. We would add another 1.5 FTEs Eligibility Specialists to our existing 1.5 FTEs who currently administer our Sliding Fee Discount Program, assist patients with their applications for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Marketplace, and assist patients with referrals to community partners for food, financial, and housing insecurities as those patients are identified through staff interactions. PCHS would expand that social risk screening and assistance to include all patients via interview at registration. PCHS would complete a minor alteration/renovation to add Eligibility Specialist workstations in the Soldotna lobby for the additional Eligibility Specialists.
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).