Plans to open a community clinic in Cheney serving the West Plains have hit a snag as hoped for federal funding has fallen through, at least for now.
Community Health Association of Spokane — CHAS — announced plans in October 2014 of its intentions to open its 11th clinic in the Inland Northwest in Cheney at the former location of Jarms ACE Hardware. CHAS’s research showed the clinic could potentially serve roughly 8,700 individuals in Cheney, Medical Lake and the surrounding areas who are low-income and either lack health insurance or their health insurance is not adequate enough to cover their health care costs.
CHAS’s plans were contingent on receiving federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administrations’ (HRSA) Health Center Program. Mike Wiser, CHAS vice president of behavioral health, said they were informed in early May that they were not one of the projects selected in the first round of funding.
“The awards seemed to focus on smaller health centers in the most rural areas and only two awards were given between Washington and Oregon,” Wiser said in an email. “However, HRSA did keep a lot of funding in reserve and has strongly hinted at a second round of funding later this year.”
According to a May 5 HHS news release, approximately $101 million in Affordable Care Act funding was released for 164 new health center sites in 33 states and two U.S territories, projected to serve nearly 650,000 patients. In Washington, just over $1.03 million went to new health centers in Port Angeles and Okanogan, which are projected to serve a total of 13,375 patients.
No awards went to projects in Oregon, while four went to proposed centers in Idaho totaling $2.645 million and one to a project in Montana at $704,000.
CHAS has proposed using the 16,020-square-foot former Jarms location to provide medical, dental and behavioral services. The clinic would staff one full-time doctor and one mid-level nurse practitioner along with support personnel for medical care, one dentist and several operatories for dental services and one social worker or a licensed mental health practitioner for behavioral services.
There would also be a trained patient services coordinator to help patients with health insurance enrollment options and advising them on options for other forms of health care.
Wiser said CHAS hopes their current funding application is “still very competitive” for additional funding in a second round of awards, something that happened with the organization’s last two “New Access Point” applications. If that should happen, receiving the award would require CHAS to open a clinic within 120 days, which means one could still open in Cheney before the end of 2015.
If the funding doesn’t come through, Wiser said CHAS would still look at ways to provide some form of low-income health care in the area.
“If we do not get the funding, we would explore options for a clinic with reduced scope while looking for other funding options for some of the bigger capital costs like dental equipment,” he said. “Cheney remains our priority for a future CHAS location outside Spokane.”
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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