Fiscal year 2025 expanded hours. - grace health, H80CS09959, will use $500,000 each year for two years of expanded hours funding to further ease patients' and underserved community members' ability to…

Fiscal year 2025 expanded hours. - grace health, H80CS09959, will use $500,000 each year for two years of expanded hours funding to further ease patients' and underserved community members' ability to access essential health center services during new operating hours including evenings and weekends, when access to primary care may otherwise be limited or nonexistent in their community. New operating hours will support patients to receive care in a primary care setting, reducing visits to emergency departments. This will reduce health care costs and preserve emergency department capacity for patients with acute needs. Hours will be expanded for at three sites totaling 14 additional hours for medical, pharmacy and enabling services. Patient needs related to accessing care before or after work, after school, and on weekends will increase opportunities to address preventive care, medication management, and addressing barriers to access such as cost of care, translation and transportation. The three sites where hours will be expanded include: grace health medical campus (knox county) will increase from 67-70 hours per week; grace health hyden will increase from 48 to 54 hours per week and, grace health manchester will increase from 45 to 50 hours per week. All three sites will offer the full scope of primary care including preventive screenings, diagnostic x-RAY and diagnostic labs, patient education, exams, gynecological care, pediatric care, acute care, and appointments for follow-up visits as needed. Pharmacy services will be offered at manchester and the medical campus through the on-site pharmacy and include prescription filling / refilling, patient education, assistance with cost and delivery services to hyden. Enabling services will include eligibility assistance as all patient support staff are trained to assess financial eligibility for sliding fee discount, translation services available through the language line and assistance with transportation through established collaborative agreements with rtec and kceoc, through collaboration with horizon health for persons with substance use disorder or through the use of grace health's patient assistance fund. The expected impact of this project includes increased access to care for 750 new patients and 580 existing patients, improved health outcomes, reduced emergency department utilization for non-urgent visits, and reduction in barriers to care such as transportation and affordability. Grace health will sustain services and expanded hours beyond the project period through efficient billing and collections, staff retention, increased utilization by existing patients, increasing referrals from community partners, and increasing new patients.