Teen girls reported record levels of violence, sadness, and thoughts of suicide in 2021, experiencing distress at twice the rate of teen boys, according to new federal data released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The nearly three in five teen girls who felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 was a 60% increase compared to a decade earlier. The increase in sadness and hopelessness was reported across all racial groups over the last decade. In 30 years of collecting similar data, “we’ve never seen this kind of devastating, consistent findings,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC’s adolescent and school health division. “There’s no question young people are telling us they are in crisis. The data really call on us to act.”

George Washington University’s Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health has released a new policy brief, Community Health Centers Making the Move to Value-Based Payment. The brief provides in-depth findings from a qualitative study to understand and document community health center experiences with Medicaid alternative payment models (APM) and move to value-based payment (VBP). Interviews with primary care associations and health centers in twelve case study states revealed that health centers participate in a variety of VBP models. Their engagement is spurred by substantial Medicaid patient volume, the need for more predictable and stable financing, and the desire to move away from an encounter-based care delivery system to models that allow for greater care coordination and team-based care. The report concludes that states can encourage the move to VBP models by recognizing the essential role that health centers play as the backbone of the healthcare safety net and that given the strong potential for VBP models to alleviate financial pressures on health centers, allow health center providers to offer more efficient and coordinated care, and transform care delivery for their patients, these efforts merit support.

Chapter 13 of the Rural Health Clinic and Federally Qualified Health Center Medicare Benefit Policy Manual has 2022 and 2023 updates. This provides revisions and clarifications important for FQHCs to review. See the list of changes in the manual here.

Pennsylvania’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), brought to you by Geisinger Health Plan Kids (GHP Kids), is expanding to statewide coverage beginning February 13, 2023. GHP Kids currently serves more than 11,000 members and is available for all uninsured kids and teenagers up to age 19. As with other CHIP plans, the comprehensive coverage is offered at a low or no cost, with no limit on household income. Many services are covered, including routine doctor visits; preventive services; dental, vision, and hearing exams; emergency care; and hospital care, as well as prescriptions.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee, which deals with health policy, held a hearing on shortages in the healthcare labor force on Feb. 16. Committee members discussed potential solutions for widespread workforce shortages affecting the healthcare industry after hearing witness testimony from medical schools and colleges. Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) is a member of the HELP Committee.

The FY24 President’s budget will be released on March 9. Traditionally, once the budget is released, the appropriations season begins. NACHC will analyze the President’s FY24 budget proposal and utilize it in the legislative push to increase health center funding.

On February 15, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) held the first meeting of its 340B Workgroup. The workgroup has representatives from Community Health Centers, managed care organizations, associations representing covered entities, and others. The workgroup is scheduled to meet almost weekly through February and March and is tasked with helping DHS identify a process to acknowledge contract pharmacies and accurately and effectively identify and exclude 340B drug claims to allow 340B covered entities and the patients they serve to continue to receive the benefits of 340B savings.

The newly updated resource from the team at Rural Health Value contains one-page summaries of rural-relevant, value-based programs currently or recently implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services, primarily by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and its Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. The Rural Health Value team is funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy.

  The Center on Rural Innovation (CORI) dives deep into a general misunderstanding about rural demographics, and the way that impacts policy, investments, and outcomes for rural areas.

 This is a recording of a one-hour webinar that took place on Monday, February 13.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Rural Residency Planning and Development Technical Assistance (RRPD-TA) Center provided an overview of the application process for the second round of 200 Medicare residency slots available to eligible hospitals, including rural hospitals, interested in expanding residency training. Applications for Fiscal Year 2024 must be submitted through the Medicare Electronic Application Request Information (MEARIS™) by March 31, 2023. For more information, see the Frequently Asked Questions and the application submission process guide.