In the wake of COVID-19, identifying social needs and aligning social services is more important than ever. The communities served by health centers are disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s adverse health, economic, and social impacts. Tackling this multifaceted pandemic requires concerted efforts to document, understand, and plan for patients’ and communities’ social risks that impact wellbeing – particularly those risk that are emerging under COVID-19. The Protocol for Responding to and Assessing Patients’ Assets, Risks and Experiences (PRAPARE) is a national effort to help health centers and other providers collect and apply the data they need to better understand and address their patients’ social determinants and prevent the deterioration of health equity. This session will help equip participants with the knowledge and resources needed to advance healthy equity within the current realities of COVID-19 and racial injustice. After a brief introduction to PRAPARE, this session will cover 1) how health centers are pioneering the use of PRAPARE to improve health equity while also responding to COVID-19, and 2) how PRAPARE can inform health centers and their social services partners as they build capacity for health equity.

COVID-19 has resulted in unprecedented disruptions for the world.  Health Centers have received significant additional funding to play a key role in their communities in preventing the spread of COVID, and preparing for and responding to outbreaks.  During this session, we will provide insight into the additional grants management complexities facing CHCs as a result of the additional COVID related funding.  Additional funding comes with compliance requirements and an expectation of accountability.  This means an increase in the compliance risks and additional complexities that Health Centers have not experienced.  The session will discuss high risk grant compliance areas and best practices for navigating your Health Center through these challenging times.  We will also address how you can review the documentation that you have gathered and improve it if you believe that what you have done so far is not enough.  

The COVID-19 pandemic required health center dental clinics to respond by limiting care to emergencies. Recovery issues addressed by successful dental programs included procedure classification by risk, revised workflow, infection control, and tele-dentistry. NACHC’s Quality Center Value Transformation Framework provides a conceptual model to guide systems change in three domains: Infrastructure, Care Delivery, and People. Reimagined oral health care must address these domains, including expansion of care team members involved in the provision of oral health services and use of dental care team members for the services they are uniquely trained to provide. Lessons learned during reopening can be applied to maximize dental care in a value-based care environment. This session will provide a view of these issues from national, state, and local perspectives.

This session is limited to the first 100 attendees.

This workshop will cover actions states have taken or will be facing related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including Section 1135 waivers, Medicaid payment protections and Medicaid expansion and budget challenges. Emphasis will be placed on policies and issues affecting FQHC patients, finances and operations.

Through times of uncertainty, such as the current operating environment for health centers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, health center boards must address urgent governance items as well as to continue to focus on routine board business. This session will highlight tips and strategies that boards can use to strike this balance, as well as strategies board leadership can use to aid the board in governing during times of uncertainty.

During this session, we will explore best practices and lessons learned over the last several months of the COVID – 19 Pandemic impacts on our health center financial operations.  There have been significant shifts in how we deliver care, how we get paid for the care we deliver and how we monitor and track these activities for compliance.  We will discuss cash flow management, staffing considerations and shifts, management of new revenue streams and spending order of money, impacts on revenue cycle management including telehealth from the finance lens.  We will also discuss the critical communication needed to support all departments of the health center in this crisis environment.   

Year of the Nurse 2020 has provided an opportunity to highlight the contributions of nurses in community health centers and the patients they engage. It has also created a vision of reimagined roles of nurses in health center care. This session will showcase nurses leading in the areas of LGBTQ care, nursing workforce innovations, and nurse-led diabetes management.