Letter: Help us ensure access to high-quality health care for all North Dakotans

It’s a powerful time for well being care suppliers proper now. Staffing shortages are rising throughout North Dakota attributable to long-standing supplier shortage and made worse by pandemic-related burn-out. The largest value for all well being care suppliers is wages. Wages have elevated dramatically over the previous couple of years from entry-level workers to high-level suppliers, and reimbursement and different funding have simply not saved tempo.

Group well being middle advocates are working laborious on the capitol this legislative session to make a case for the worth of the care we offer and the necessity for extra state help to maintain and proceed to develop our impression throughout North Dakota. That sounds nice, you might say, however what’s a neighborhood well being middle?

In a nutshell, neighborhood well being facilities (CHCs) are nonprofit, patient-governed well being care suppliers with a mission of filling gaps within the present well being care system. In rural areas, which may imply offering entry to care in locations the place it may not be financially viable to maintain native major care. In city areas, it often means offering care to underserved populations akin to people dealing with housing insecurity, low-income working households, or these greatest served in a language apart from English. In 2021, North Dakota CHCs supplied high-quality, cost-effective medical, dental, behavioral well being, and school-based care to over 36,000 people at 21 supply websites in 19 communities.

Group well being facilities – by mission and program necessities – see all sufferers no matter insurance coverage standing or capability to pay. Well being facilities supplied practically $11 million in uncompensated care over the past legislative biennium. On the similar time, they saved different suppliers and state cash by offering a mannequin of care that retains sufferers wholesome and out of the emergency room.

Due to the distinctive function well being facilities play in filling gaps within the well being care system, 29 states at the moment allocate funds to help their mission. Just lately, North Dakota legislators heard instantly from well being middle executives about how they’d use further sources from the state. Spectra Well being talked concerning the lives they’ve saved via the facilities’ opioid remedy packages. Household HealthCare described a cell van outfitted with dental tools that may journey to satisfy the dental entry wants of underserved populations in Fargo and past. Northland Well being Facilities mentioned increasing entry to behavioral well being companies in communities with only a few native suppliers. Generally, this state funding would assist well being facilities reply to workforce challenges and shortages, allow well being IT investments that help high quality enchancment, put extra sources in the direction of social and environmental obstacles to well being in underserved communities, and maintain outreach, translation, transportation, and different non-billable companies.

To study extra concerning the neighborhood well being facilities and their impression on your neighborhood, go to the Group HealthCare Affiliation of the Dakota’s web site at

www.communityhealthcare.internet

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to hitch the motion to make sure entry to high-quality well being take care of all North Dakotans!

Shelly Ten Napel is chief govt officer of the Group HealthCare Affiliation of the Dakotas.

This letter doesn’t essentially replicate the opinion of The Discussion board’s editorial board nor Discussion board possession.