Primary Care

Project Title

The Primary Care Workforce Recruitment and Retention Initiative

Grant Amount

$350,000

Priority Area

Primary Care

Date Awarded

October 28, 2015

Region

NYC

Status

Closed

Website

http://www.chcanys.org/

SEE GRANT OUTCOMES

The number of New Yorkers served by federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) as a result of the Affordable Care Act is expected to increase to 3 million by the end of 2015.

This calls for an increase in primary care capacity to provide for both the influx of newly insured people and a strong safety net for those who remain uninsured. An NYHealth-funded report, developed by the Community Health Care Association of New York State (CHCANYS) in 2013, was the first-ever New York State plan that identified ways for existing health centers to increase productivity and fill vacancies among clinical provider staff. One of the report’s key findings was that expanding established provider recruitment and retention programs to fill existing vacancies could produce 720,000 more visits for more than 155,000 patients. In 2015, NYHealth awarded CHCANYS a grant to take action on the report’s findings and address workforce shortages identified in the statewide plan.

Under this grant, CHCANYS implemented a project designed to address the primary care shortages in the most affected communities across the State. Specifically, it provided technical assistance to half of all the State’s FQHCs to help them to take advantage of State and federal scholarship and loan repayment programs to obtain and implement workforce recruitment and retention strategies by the end of 2016. Additionally, CHCANYS provided in-depth assistance to five of the highest-need FQHCs in the State to develop and implement their own recruitment and retention plans. CHCANYS worked to increase FQHC participation in each State and federal scholarship and loan repayment program by 10%. A final report identified policy solutions and legislative strategies to expand and improve the structure and functionality of the loan repayment programs.

Read the report, “FQHC Utilization of State and Federal Loan and Scholarship Programs to Support Clinician Recruitment.”