Health Centers

Community health centers are a national network of over 1,300 safety-net primary care providers, serving more than 30 million patients in 2022. They are located in medically underserved urban and rural communities and serve all patients regardless of their ability to pay. Health centers also played a major role in the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, particularly for hard-to-reach populations. This brief analyzes the changes in health center patients, services, and financing from 2019 (pre-pandemic) through 2022, using the Uniform Data System (UDS), to which all health centers are required to report annually.

Community health centers have seen a rise in patients seeking non-medical services such as housing, food, nutrition, and transportation during the pandemic and have added new mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services in response to growing need, according to a new KFF survey. Over half of the health…

Community health centers, a national network of safety-net primary care providers, are poised to be on the front lines of the unwinding of the Medicaid continuous enrollment requirement when the public health emergency (PHE) ends. Health centers can be effective in raising awareness about Medicaid renewal requirements and in providing the help needed for enrollees to maintain Medicaid or transition to other coverage.

Community health centers are a national network of safety-net primary care providers serving low-income, medically underserved communities. Based on findings from a national survey of health centers, this brief examines how the pandemic has affected health center patients and services as well as the ongoing challenges health centers and their patients face.

As part of an effort to promote equitable access to tests, the Biden administration launched a testing supply program that has set aside 25 million rapid at-home self-test kits for distribution by community health centers. Under the program, health centers will be distributing self-tests to patients and community members, with a focus on populations at greatest risk from adverse outcomes related to COVID-19.

The U.S territories and the Freely Associated States (FAS) have faced an array of longstanding fiscal and health challenges, made worse by recent natural disasters and the coronavirus pandemic. Community health centers are an important part of health care system in the territories and FAS, providing access to a range of primary care services to low-income and vulnerable individuals. Based on findings from a survey of health centers, data from the Uniform Data System (UDS), and interviews with Primary Care Associations in those regions, this brief examines the roles of health centers in U.S. territories and FAS during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the country has collectively experienced health and economic difficulties with the COVID-19 pandemic, certain groups have experienced a disproportionate impact. The Asian American community has had to cope with the burden of pandemic-related racism and, as one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in the nation, immigration-related fears due…

This analysis updates earlier work and examines the extent to which vaccination efforts through community health centers are reaching people of color using data from the federal government’s weekly Health Center COVID-19 Survey. We include data from the survey weeks of January 8 through May 21, 2021, finding that people of color made up the majority of people who received vaccinations at community health centers.

Staffing to administer the COVID-19 vaccines is now the most common challenge for community health centers’ vaccination programs, overtaking the previously reported vaccine supply challenges.