2 Maine community health networks share $2.9M grant

A sign that says Belgrade Regional Health Center, and below that, A Health Read Community Health Center, with a small sign that says accepting new patients, with evergreens behind it

Photo / Maureen Milliken HealthReach Community Health Centers and Health Access Network received a total of $2.9 million from a federal grant program that works to increase rural health access. Belgrade Regional Health Center is one of 11 HealthReach centers in five counties.

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By Staff

Two community health networks have been awarded a total of $2,974,548 to help boost health care in the regions they serve — a large swath of central and western Maine.

Waterville-based Healthreach Community Health Centers and Lincoln-based Health Access Network received the funds the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The money comes from the Health Center Cluster Program, which works to improve access to health care by building healthy communities, strengthening the health care workforce and achieving health equity, according to a joint news release from U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine. The program targets the economic and medically vulnerable as well as the geographically isolated.

Healthreach Community Health Centers was awarded $1,691,456. It served 27,780 patients from 80 communities in nine counties in 2018. Healthreach has centers in Albion, Belgrade, Bethel, Bingham, Coopers Mills, Kingfield, Livermore Falls, Madison, Rangeley, Richmond and Strong.

Health Access Network was awarded $1,283,092. It serves more than 12,000 patients in Penobscot County, with health centers in Lincoln, Lee, Medway, Millinocket and West Enfield.

Collins and King were original cosponsors of the Community Health Investment, Modernization and Excellence Act, which would reauthorize the Community Health Center Fund and the National Health Service Corps for five years. Last month they joined group of 25 senators in a push to secure long-term federal funding for community health centers, which was set to expire last week, but was extended to Dec. 20.

Community health centers serve approximately 29 million patients at more than 10,000 sites in both rural and urban communities in the U.S., and in 2017, were the medical home for one in 12 Americans, one in 10 children, one in six Americans living in rural areas, and more than 330,000 veterans, the release said.

“Community health centers are the backbone of Maine’s rural health care system, providing cost-effective primary and preventive care that is crucial to the well-being of more than 200,000 Maine people,” Collins and King said in the release. “We welcome this grant, and will continue working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to push for long-term federal funding that ensures CHCs can continue to provide vital healthcare services to Maine people.”