Colorado Awarded Almost $800,000 for Rural Healthcare Priorities

On Monday, Health & Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, announced the awarding of $32 million in grants to support rural health priorities. Congratulations to the Colorado Rural Health Center, which was awarded over $500,000 for the Rural Hospital Flex Program. The Rural Hospital Flex Program supports improvements in healthcare quality in communities served by Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs). CAHs are rural hospitals with fewer than 25 beds that provide critical care to rural and remote areas of our state. There are 29 CAHs throughout Colorado that will benefit from this funding.

Congratulations are also in order to the Plains Medical Center located in Limon, Colorado, that received close to $200,00 for Rural Health Workforce Development.

To see a list of all the awardees, please visit the Health & Human Services website or click here.

The Colorado Health Foundation Blog on 60, 61 and 101

Shepard Nevel, Vice President for Policy and Operations at the Colorado Health Foundation, published an excellent post on the negative impact Amendment 60, 61 and Proposition 101 would have on healthcare services in Colorado.

The Colorado Rural Health Center is one of many organizations opposed to these three ballot measures. Please visit Looking Forward Colorado to learn more about the impact these ballot initiatives would have on Colorado.

Safety-Net Facilities Improvement Grants

The Kresge Foundation, based in Michigan, is accepting grant applications on an on-going basis for safety-net facilities to improve their infrastructure. It is a challenge grant, so there are funding requirements (ex: raising a percentage of funding) in order to be eligible for these funds. This is a great opportunity for communities to come together and support Rural Health Clinics, Critical Access Hospitals, and Community Funded Safety Net Clinics since none of these entities received resources for infrastructure through the federal stimulus package.

Please read the following for more information and to link to the grant website:

Safety-net Facility Improvements

This grant opportunity extends Kresge’s long history of awarding challenge grants to organizations conducting capital campaigns for new building construction and facility renovation. In addition to facilities-capital challenge grants, we are increasing our investment in community-based health centers through a variety of funding methods, including program-related investments or below market rate loans.

Clinics that are expanding and/or improving their physical infrastructure in order to increase accessibility, availability, and the quality of services provided to disadvantaged, uninsured and under-insured populations are typically competitive applicants. Anchor organizations that assume a leadership role in facilitating meaningful and relevant community change by strengthening the safety-net or improving their ability to respond to priority community health issues are encouraged to apply. Consideration also is given to projects that are environmentally sustainable and adopt the Green Guide for Health Care.

To apply for facilities capital, visit the challenge grant page for complete information, including letter of inquiry requirements, and to apply online.

Conferences, Conferences, and More Conferences!!

With summer winding down, a large portion of our organizational partners are gearing up for their fall conferences. I've listed some of them below and included links for your convenience. Enjoy!

Progressive 15 - Fall Conference & Candidate Forum
September 16 - 17 at the Fountains of Loveland, Loveland

Action 22 - Annual Conference
September 24 - 25 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Colorado Springs

Club 20 - Fall Meeting & Debates
September 10 - 11 at Two Rivers Convention Center, Grand Junction

Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved - Annual Conference
Friday, October 8th at The Children's Hospital, Aurora

Federal Medicaid Extension Signed by President Obama

President Obama signed into law the $26 billion jobs bill, which contained funding for the FMAP extension. As previously written about here, the FMAP is the matching funds the federal government provides states to operate Medicaid. This means that Colorado lawmakers will not have to make an estimated $200 million in cuts that would have happened if the FMAP had not been extended. If and when the state will have to make future cuts will become more apparent as 2010 rolls along. The next budget revenue forecast will be released September 20th. With the passage of this bill, Congress is now on recess until the middle of September, so things should be relatively quiet at the federal level. That being said, with primary election results being decided yesterday, stay tuned for the campaigning fun to begin!

HHS Awards $159.1 Million to Support Health Care Workforce Training

Congratulations to all of the Colorado recipients of the Health & Human Services Health Care Workforce Training Grants! Colorado will receive a total of $1.4 million!
These funds will be used to expand training in nursing workforce. Here is a breakdown of who & what was funded in our state:

Advanced Education Nursing Grants
University of Colorado, Denver - Aurora: $315,433.00
University of Colorado, Denver - Aurora: $249,103.00
University of Colorado, Denver - Aurora: $293,049.00

Advanced Education Nursing Traineeship Grants
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center - Aurora: $80,543.00
Regents of The University of Colorado, Colorado Springs: $38,602.00
Regis University, Denver: $164,077.00
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley: $27,745.00

Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention Grants
Chi Colorado Foundation (doing business as St. Mary-Corwin Health Foundation) Pueblo: $195,201.00

Senate Passes FMAP Extenstion - House Expected to Vote this Week

See what happens when I go on vacation.....the Senate finally voted on extending the FMAP! With a vote of 61-39, the Senate approved a slightly scaled back version of the FMAP extension. Beginning in January 2011, the FMAP extension will provide a 3.2%first quarter increase, which is reduced to 1.2% in the second quarter. There are exceptions for states with high unemployment rates (not sure what the definition of "high unemployment rates" is), which will continue to receive the enhanced FMAP without any decrease.

The House, which had began summer recess, has been called back to D.C. and is expected to vote on the bill this week. It is critical that the House pass this legislation or Colorado's current budget will be short approximately $200 million. If you have a minute, please consider calling your Representative and encouraging them to vote yes on extending the FMAP.

Representative Diana DeGette: 202-225-4431
Representative Jared Polis: 202-225-2161
Representative John Salazar: 202-225-4761
Representative Betsy Markey: 202-225-4876
Representative Doug Lamborn: 202-225-4422
Representative Mike Coffman: 202-225-7882
Representative Ed Perlmutter: 202-225-2645

Rural Provisions Appropriated, but still need Congress Approval

The Senate Labor, Health & Human Services, Education and Related Agencies marked up its draft appropriations bill and released a final version July 29th. The bill provides $169.9 billion in discretionary funds for a variety of programs, some of which would be very helpful for rural healthcare consumers & providers. In particular to note is the $5.1 million for the Rural Physician Pipeline program, which was introduced by Colorado Senator Udall. This program was included in the federal health reform bill, but did not receive appropriated funding through the bill. There are a host of other rural friendly & workforce provisions in the bill including funding for primary care training, nurse faculty loan forgiveness, and public health workforce training. You can read more about what was appropriated by clicking HERE.

The big pickle with this bill is that it is not likely to be voted on by Congress until after the elections in November. According to our partners at the National Rural Health Association, Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) was quoted as saying, "this bill probably won't see the light of day until December, maybe January." Not promising news........

FMAP Vote to Happen Before 5p Tomorrow

The Senate is expected to vote on the FMAP extension no later than 5p tomorrow. I will be out of town and not able to provide an update until Monday. Fingers crossed that the extension is approved!

FMAP Vote to take place ???????

Looks like the FMAP vote that was allegedly set to take place last night (Monday 8.2) was postponed. The Senate might vote on it tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. No one really knows. Isn't our political system fun!?!?!

On another note, the House is on recess until Tuesday, September 14th. This is a great time to try and meet with your district Representative. As part of Safety Net Clinic Week (Aug. 30th - Sept. 3rd) ClinicNET and CRHC will be reaching out to policy makers and scheduling site visits so that our elected officials learn about the often overlooked healthcare safety net providers: Rural Health Clinics and Community Funded Safety Net Clinics. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in hosting a site visit.

TCT Video about Colorado Workforce Collaborative

New video features Colorado Workforce Collaborative
Click on the above link to watch a video from The Colorado Trust highlighting some of the issues faced in recruiting and retatining healthcare professionals in rural and underserved areas of Colorado and how the Colorado Health Professions Workforce Collaborative is working to address some of these issues.

Senate Expected to Vote on FMAP Extenstion

Details are foggy right now, but it sounds as if the Senate is expected to vote tonight on extending the FMAP bump to states. As has been previously mentioned here in The Rural Voice, the FMAP is the methodology used by the federal government to provide states funding for the Medicaid program. Prior to the stimulus bill, Colorado was a 50/50 state. For every dollar Colorado spent on Medicaid, the federal government matched that with a dollar. Since the stimulus package went into effect, Colorado's FMAP has been approximately 60/40, which has provided the state some relief. Currently, the big issue facing our state (as well as 20+ other states) is that Colorado crafted the state FY10-11 budget assuming our state would get the FMAP extension that is being voted on tonight. The increased FMAP bump is set to expire at the end of December 2010. If Congress fails to extend this FMAP increase, Colorado will be approximately $200 million short in our current fiscal year, which ends July 31, 2011. This will mean major cuts to state services as we move into 2011.

On a good note, this past weekend the Denver Post reported that revenues for the state are better than expected since last budget revenue forecast. This means the $75 million in cuts that Governor Ritter was set to address this month may not have to happen afterall. Keep your fingers crossed and as always, stay tuned for more budget fun as the next budget revenue forecast will come out in September.