Tuesday, February 11, 2025
2/11/2025
Camden-on-Gauley Medical Center, Inc., dba Camden Family Health - H80CS00078 Camden on Gauley, West Virginia Summary: Camden Family Health (CFH) is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that offers primary medical, behavioral health, dental, optical, pharmaceutical, and enabling services to medically vulnerable residents of Central West Virginia. The six-county area sees high rates of poverty, poor mental health outcomes, and devastating drug use. CFH is proud to serve its community as a safety net health clinic, addressing significant health disparities and social determinants of health (SDoH). The Center has a mission-oriented team that maintains an intimate familiarity with patients’ needs and health concerns. A part of this includes the dire need for mental health (MH) and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment services among the local population. For example, the service area has a higher rate of frequent mental distress (21.9%) than both West Virginia (20.6%) and the United States (15.0%). Additionally, these mental health statistics are reflected in the high suicide rates, including 27.0 per 100,000 residents in Nicholas County and 29.5 per 100,000 in Lewis Counties. MH and SUD are intricately intertwined, so, unsurprisingly, West Virginia has among the most detrimental SUD outcomes in the nation. The service area has almost double the rate of drug-related fatalities (45.3 per 100,000 people) than the United States (23.6%). Drug use is severe in this region due to a combination of economic distress, unemployment, and limited access to MH and SUD treatment services. These factors create barriers to accessing treatment, heightening the need for additional resources. CFH will add services that provide care to low-income individuals within the service area. The region is home to approximately 158,000 residents, of which 41.6% live in poverty (65,743 people). Additionally, there are an estimated 29,521 residents with a diagnosed SUD and an estimated 41,531 with a diagnosed mental illness. The target population is found in the conjunction of low-income and those with behavioral health concerns. To address the need for behavioral health care while focusing on the target population, CFH proposes expanding MH, SUD, and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) services into its existing Richwood and Camden-on-Gauley (Camden) clinics. Currently, the Richwood location does not offer any behavioral health services, so implementing mental health and SUD resources will enhance the capacity to serve medically vulnerable patients of this region. The Center will add one therapist to Richwood for mental health services and offer clinical therapies such as trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy (TICBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and more. Through a psychiatric nurse practitioner, MOUD services will also be available in Richwood, offering methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone. At the Camden site, SUD services will expand through the psychiatric nurse practitioner and an additional SUD therapist who will offer clinical therapies. CFH will also hire a peer support specialist, community health worker, and case manager to coordinate care, conduct outreach, and provide peer services to patients. Adding these enabling staff will allow the Center to provide a holistic approach to MH and SUD treatment, improving health outcomes and encouraging recovery. CFH anticipates an increase in patients over the 2025 calendar year. Based on 2023 UDS data and historical information, CFH projects an increase of 450 behavioral health patients with 400 being unduplicated. Of these, the Center estimates that 175 will be MH patients and 275 will be SUD/MOUD patients. With the additional services available in Richwood and Camden on Gauley, along with two new therapists and one psychiatric nurse practitioner, these projections are both realistic and achievable.
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