Fiscal year 2025 expanded hours. - blue ridge medical center H80CS00175 blue ridge medical center (brmc) proposes to increase hours of operation at two sites (nelson and appomattox) to increase…

Fiscal year 2025 expanded hours. - blue ridge medical center H80CS00175 blue ridge medical center (brmc) proposes to increase hours of operation at two sites (nelson and appomattox) to increase accessibility to primary care services, pediatric services, and pharmacy for patients. These increased hours outside of those that are traditionally available at healthcare practices will provide increased access for underserved communities that face many barriers to receiving care, improve overall health of the communities, and reduce hospitalization rates. Brmc's service area includes amherst, appomattox, and nelson counties in central virginia. All three counties are designated as healthcare professional shortage areas (hpsas) in terms of primary care, behavioral health, and dental health. Additionally, all three counties are designated as a low income population hpsa. In nelson county, there is currently no access to care outside of normal business hours (8AM-5PM). Both private practices are only open on weekdays during normal business hours, and there are no urgent care practices or walk in facilities in the county. This GAP in care leaves most residents needing to travel to charlottesville (35-45 minutes north) for any after-hours care. Appomattox county faces similar barriers with only one private practice that provides services monday-friday during normal business hours. Similar to nelson county, there is no urgent care or walk in facility in appomattox county forcing residents to travel to either lynchburg or farmville (30 minutes either direction) for care outside of normal business hours. Residents of both appomattox and nelson counties face many social determinant of health barriers that further create difficulty in receiving healthcare services during normal business hours. Both counties experience high rates of uninsured adults (14.9% in nelson and 13.8% in appomattox) and families in poverty. Additionally, both counties have high rates of asset-limited, income constrai NED, employed (alice) households. These households are employed yet do not earn enough income to cover the basic costs of living forcing individuals to make difficult decisions between paying for food, gas, childcare, internet, phone bills, healthcare, etc. Within the brmc service area, 31% of nelson county and 33% of appomattox county households are classified as alice households. In these homes, appointments outside of working hours are vital to creating an accessible medical home without removing these individuals from necessary working opportunities. To address this growing disparity in access to appointments at a healthcare facility, brmc will expand hours of operation by 28 hours per week. An additional 15 hours will be added to the hours of operation at arrington and 13 hours per week at appomattox in order to accommodate increased care and patients. At the nelson site, access to primary care, pediatrics, and extended pharmacy hours will be available during the expanded hours. At the appomattox location, primary care services will be available during the expanded hours. To accommodate for the increase in hours and available appointments, brmc will increase staff by 4 providers, 4 medical assistants, 2 support staff, and 1 interpreter. Brmc anticipates that this increase in hours will create an additional 90 appointments in arrington and 78 appointments in appomattox per week resulting in 8,000 new appointments per year. With current goals of increasing the unduplicated patient count by 3% per year, brmc will reserve 20% of all expanded hour appointments for new patients in order to continue to meet the needs of our communities. Brmc estimates this will create 800 appointments annually at each site for patients who are new to brmc and seeking a medical home.