NACHC Health Center Advocacy in Minutes

Access to affordable dental health care can be a struggle for many people but especially for our nation’s veterans. Why is this the case? Because veterans do not qualify for full VA dental benefits unless they are classified as 100 percent disabled. As a result many veterans delay or go without basic dental care because they lack insurance or financial resources. We recently spoke to Zufall Health Center President and CEO Eva Turbiner who told us how her health center is working to fill the oral health gap among veterans in New Jersey.

Isha Weerasinghe, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), Teresita Batayola, CEO of International Community Health Services (ICHS), and Pi'ilani Kai, Development Director for Waimanalo Health Center join us to talk about how health centers integrate linguistically accessible and culturally appropriate services to better serve their patients.

Meg Meador, NACHC Director of Clinical Integration and Education, shares information on hypertension--also known as high blood pressure--and what Community Health Centers are doing to diagnose and control hypertension in their patients.

For the resources mentioned in this podcast make sure to visit https://millionhearts.hhs.gov/.

Ellen Lawton, Principal Investigator and Lead Research Scientist with the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, and Liz Tobin Tyler, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Health Services, Policy and Practice at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, join us to discuss the how Medical-Legal Partnership is working with health centers across the country to address barriers health care access.

Download NACHC's newest brief on Medical-legal Partnership and Community Health centers at bit.ly/oe_mlp.

Learn more about Medical Legal Partnership at www.medical-legalpartnership.org

Dr. Alex Keuroghlian, Clinical Psychiatrist and Associate Director of Education and Training Programs at Fenway Health in Boston, joins us for our second podcast in the Health Centers and Addiction series to talk about substance abuse in the LGBT community.

Journalist and author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Sam Quinones, and Louise Reese, CEO of the West Virginia Primary Care Association, discuss the opioid epidemic in America and how West Virginia Community Health Centers are making a difference. Also, don't miss Louise Reese's op-ed on opioid addiction in WV http://bit.ly/2gN2VfB.

Sarah Dixon from the Iowa Primary Care Association joins us to talk about efforts in Iowa to make HIV/AIDS screenings routine in order to increase access to HIV/AIDS care.

We’re discussing how federal funding for outreach and enrollment activities impacted health centers in both expansion and non-expansion states and how that funding and O&E activities helped create new quality programs at health centers. Featuring health policy expert Dave Chandrasekaran, Partnership Community Health Center Development Director Patricia Sarvela, and Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation Director of Financial Affairs Teresa Flemming. To learn more about the case studies in mentioned in this podcast visit: http://bit.ly/fqhc_oe.

BD, Direct Relief, and NACHC recently honored 10 Community Health Centers with the Innovations in Care Award. Part of the BD Helping Build Healthy Communities initiative the $100,000 awards acknowledge innovative approaches to the prevention and treatment of diseases that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations (see more here: http://bit.ly/HealthyCommunitiesAward). We spoke to Julien Guttman, Director of Clinical Services at Mary's Center in Washington, DC, Damon Taugher, Director, Direct Relief USA, and Ellen Rafferty, Manager of Social Investing at BD about the initiative.

Open Door Family Medical Centers in NY share why they joined the the American Cancer Society's 80% by 2018 campaign and how they are working to get their patients screened for colon cancer.