Stimulus Funds Available for New NHSC Loan Repayment Program & New Hires at Community Health Centers

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of $338 million made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to expand services offered at the nation's health centers.

The grants, titled Increased Demand for Services (IDS) grants, will be distributed to 1,128 federally qualified health center grantees. Health centers will use the funds over the next two years to create or retain approximately 6,400 health center jobs.

The IDS awards are the second set of health center grants provided through the ARRA.  On March 2, President Obama announced grants worth $155 million to establish 126 new health centers.  Those grants will provide access to health center care for 750,000 people in 39 states and two territories.

Federally qualified health centers deliver preventive and primary care services to patients regardless of their ability to pay; charges for services are set according to income.  Health centers served more than 16 million patients in 2007, about 40 percent of whom had no health insurance. The stimulus funds will provide care to an additional 2.1 million patients over the next two years.

There will be $196 million made available at the federal level for the NHSC LRP, which will add about 4,000 new clinicians across the nation to serve the medically uninsured and underinsured. Moreover, limits (caps) on the number of health providers per site will be lifted and substantially raised. These new funds are expected to be available in June 2009 for an18 month period until the funds are expended.

In addition, $20 million will be made available as matching state funds to assist participating states with their specific state LRP programs.