The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is pleased to share an update on our efforts related to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Modernization Initiative.

HRSA is committed to continued dialogue with OPTN stakeholders to ensure that patient, family, and clinician voices are engaged in the OPTN modernization efforts.  In June 2023, HRSA, through its engagement with a program management support contractor, kicked off stakeholder interviews to better understand the pain points and perspectives of individuals and organizations that directly interact with the OPTN. Stakeholder engagement with patients also began this month.  In addition, a web-based contact form is now available on the OPTN Modernization website to provide another avenue to solicit feedback from patients, families, clinicians, and other interested parties.

HRSA is focused on fostering robust competition and innovation to procure best in class support for the OPTN through ongoing market research and industry engagement.  To advance this, HRSA hosted an Industry Day for interested parties and vendors to solicit feedback on the Fall 2023 solicitation.  Information shared during Industry Day is available on SAM.gov.

HRSA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are engaged in a coordinated effort through the Organ Transplant Affinity Group’s (OTAG) newly released action plan to improve organ donation, procurement, and transplantation.  Both agencies are committed to drive improvements in donations, clinical outcomes, system improvement, quality measurement and transparency, and regulatory oversight.

HRSA will continue to provide updates on our modernization efforts toward achieving enhanced accountability, equity, and performance in the organ transplantation system.

For more information and the latest OPTN Modernization updates, visit www.hrsa.gov/optn-modernization.

The 2024 National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Students to Service Loan Repayment Program is now open. Final-year nursing, medical, and dental students can apply for up to $120,000 in exchange for a three-year commitment to providing primary care services at NHSC-approved sites in high-need areas. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) added a $40,000 supplement for medical students who commit to providing OB/GYN services in a maternity care target area. The application deadline is 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 7.

The Pennsylvania Action Coalition is seeking both applicants and host sites for the AmeriCorps Public Health Nursing Program. This program is designed to provide undergraduate nursing students with community-based primary care and public health clinical experiences while serving vulnerable communities. Sign up to be an AmeriCorps Public Health Nursing fellow. Host sites will be responsible for onboarding, and onsite supervising, and can network with nursing students who will be potential job seekers after service. If you are interested in becoming a host site for the nursing fellows, please email Christine Simon at csimon@phmc.org.

Primary care physicians affiliated with large health systems drive up spending on patient care through increased referrals to specialists, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations, a study led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found. Read more.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a toolkit (PDF) to support school-based outreach to families about renewing Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage. It includes ready-to-use resources, like email and text message scripts, to spread the word about Medicaid/CHIP coverage renewal in schools and early education or care settings. The back-to-school toolkit (PDF) from the HHS Insure Kids Now campaign also supports these efforts.

A recent article in Helen: The Journal of Human Exceptionality, focuses on the health disparities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The article, “Underserved & Unrecognized: Understanding the IDD Healthcare Disparity Through Legislation,” also focuses on the need for individuals with disabilities to be recognized as a Medically Underserved Population (MUP).

Click here to read the article.

From Stateline

When someone with a medical emergency calls 911, they expect an ambulance to show up.  But sometimes, there simply isn’t one available.

Most states don’t declare emergency medical services (EMS) to be an “essential service,” meaning the state government isn’t required to provide or fund them.

Now, though, a growing number of states are taking interest in recognizing ambulance services as essential — a long-awaited move for EMS agencies and professionals in the field, who say they hope to see more states follow through. Experts say the momentum might be driven by the pandemic, a decline in volunteerism and the rural health care shortage.

EMS professionals have been advocating for essential designation and more sustainable funding “for longer than I’ve been around — longer than I’ve been a paramedic,” said Mark McCulloch, 42, who is deputy chief of emergency medical services for West Des Moines, Iowa, and who has been a paramedic for more than two decades.

Currently, 13 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws designating or allowing local governments to deem EMS as an essential service, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a think tank that has been tracking legislation around the issue.  Those include Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.  And at least two states — Massachusetts and New York — have pending legislation.  Idaho passed a resolution in March requiring the state’s health department to draft legislation for next year’s legislative session.  Meanwhile, lawmakers in Wyoming this summer rejected a bill that would have deemed EMS essential, according to local media.

“States have the authority to determine which services are essential, required to be provided to all citizens,” said Kelsie George, a policy specialist with the National Conference of State Legislatures’ health program.  Among those states deeming EMS as essential services, laws vary widely in how they provide funding. They might provide money to EMS services, establish minimum requirements for the agencies or offer guidance on organizing and paying for EMS services at the local level, George said.

The lack of EMS services is acute in rural America, where EMS agencies and rural hospitals continue to shutter at record rates, meaning longer distances to life-saving care.

“The fact that people expect it, but yet it’s not listed as an essential service in many states, and it’s not supported as such really, is where that dissonance occurs,” said longtime paramedic Brenden Hayden, chairperson of the National EMS Advisory Council, a governmental advisory group within the U.S. Department of Transportation.

More financial support

There isn’t a sole federal agency dedicated to overseeing or funding EMS, with multiple agencies handling different regulations, and some federal dollars in the form of grants and highway safety funds from the Department of Transportation. Medicaid and Medicare offer some reimbursements, but EMS advocates argue it isn’t nearly enough.

“It forces it as a state question, because the federal government has not taken on the authority to require it,” said Dia Gainor, executive director for the National Association of State EMS Officials and a former Idaho state EMS director. “It’s the prerogative of the state to make the choice” to mandate and fund EMS.

In states that don’t provide funding, EMS agencies often must rely on Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements and money they get from local governments.

Many of the latter don’t have the budgets to pay EMS workers, forcing poorer communities to turn to volunteers. But the firefighter and EMS volunteer pool is shrinking nationally as the volunteer force ages and fewer young people sign up.

Overhead for EMS agencies is expensive: A basic new ambulance can cost $200,000 to $300,000. Then there are the medicine and equipment costs, as well as staff wages and farther driving distances to medical centers in rural areas. The fact that people expect it, but yet it’s not listed as an essential service in many states, and it’s not supported as such really, is where that dissonance occurs.

By contrast, police departments are supported and receive funds from the U.S. Department of Justice along with local tax dollars, and fire departments are supported by the U.S. Fire Administration, although many underserved areas also rely on volunteer firefighters to fill gaps.  “We need more if we’re going to save this industry and [if] we’re going to be available to treat patients,” Hayden said. “EMS in general represents a rounding error in the federal budget.”  What’s more, reimbursements only occur if a patient is taken to an emergency room. Agencies may not receive compensation if they stabilize a patient without transporting them to a hospital.

Gary Wingrove, president of the Paramedic Foundation, an advocacy group, has co-authored studies on the lack of ambulance service and on ambulance costs in rural areas. The former Minnesota EMS state director argues that reimbursements should be adjusted on a cost-based basis, like critical-access medical centers that serve high rates of uninsured patients and underresourced communities.

A rural crisis

About 4.5 million people across the United States live in an “ambulance desert,” and more than half of those are residents of rural counties, according to a recent national study by the Maine Rural Health Research Center and the Rural Health Research & Policy Centers. The researchers define an ambulance desert as a community 25 minutes or more from an ambulance station.

Some regions are more underserved than others: States in the South and the West have the most rural residents living in ambulance deserts, according to the researchers, who studied 41 states using data from 2021 and last year.  State Rep. Eric Emery, a Democrat, is a paramedic and EMS director of the tribe’s sole ambulance station, providing services to 11,400 residents.

Emery and his colleagues respond to a variety of critical calls, from heart attacks to overdoses. They also provide care that people living on the reservation would otherwise get in the doctor’s office — if it didn’t take the whole day to travel to one. Those services might include taking blood pressure measurements, checking vital signs or making sure that a diabetic patient is taking their medicine properly.  Nevertheless, South Dakota is one of 37 states that doesn’t designate emergency medical services as essential, so the state isn’t required to provide or fund them.

While he and his staff are paid, remote parts of the reservation are often served by their respective county volunteer EMS agencies. It would simply take Emery’s crew too long — up to an hour — to arrive to a call.  “Something I wanted to tackle this year is to really look into making EMS an essential service here in South Dakota,” Emery said. “Being from such a conservative state that’s very conservative when it comes to their pocketbook, I know that’s probably going to be a really hard hill to climb.” Ultimately, Wingrove said, officials need to value a profession that relies on volunteers to fill funding and staffing gaps.  “We’re looking for volunteers to make decisions about whether you live or die,” he said.  “Somehow, we have placed ourselves in a situation where the people that actually make those decisions are just not valued in the way they should be valued,” he said. “They’re not valued in the city budget, the county budget, the state budget, the federal budget system. They’re just not valued at all.”

At least 5.6 Million people in 48 states and DC have been disenrolled from Medicaid since April 1, 2023, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation Medicaid Enrollment and Unwinding Tracker. Overall, 37% of people with a completed renewal were disenrolled in reporting states while 63%, or 9.2 million enrollees, had their coverage renewed (three of the reporting states do not provide data on renewed enrollees). Across all states with available data, 73% of all people disenrolled had their coverage terminated for procedural reasons. Of the people whose coverage has been renewed as of Sept. 5, 2023, 53% were renewed on an ex parte basis while 47% were renewed through a renewal form. Pennsylvania is reporting 185,000 Medicaid disenrollments due to the unwinding, with 44% of those for procedural reasons and 56% determined ineligible; 25% of those disenrolled are children and 75% are adults. Pennsylvania has a very low ex-parte renewal rate of 12% and an 88% renewal rate via the form. The Department of Human Services is processing some ex-parte renewals manually.