A lot has happened over the past three weeks. Catch up here on the 340B attack, FFR changes, the Stimulus Stall Out, RD and AC applications, and grants management policies.

Wednesday August 12! Part II of the webinar series on the LAL-ECT grant, hosted by OFAM.

Template letters and a script for your advocacy efforts. Now is the time to make certain LALs are included in the Heroes Act stimulus package!

Heroes Act legislation omits Look-Alikes from receiving a request of $7.6 billion in additional funds for community health center grantees and rural health clinics. Read more and contact your Senators ASAP.

So you received the Notice of Award for the LAL-ECT grant. How do I open it in the EHB? How do I draw down the funds? What’s all this confusing stuff in the NoA all about? Read this post for more details.

For those of you who applied for and expect to receive the Health Center Program Look-Alikes: Expanding Capacity for Coronavirus Testing (HRSA-20-147) funding opportunity, HRSA has announced a webinar series specific to grants management. Mark your calendars and attend!

NACHC’s Director of Career Advancement Strategies recently sent out an email to FQHC leadership for their opinion, to the role of CHCs beyond the COVID pandemic, set to the backdrop of Americans rallying to address systemic racism and police brutality in the wake George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police.

This is a unique opportunity for Look-Alikes to give their perspective in response to these scenarios. Please read and consider responding with a comment.

LALs are eligible for funds to prepare/respond to the COVID pandemic. Application deadline is 6/2! DON’T MISS OUT.

8 Look-Alikes took our survey. We’ve published the results. Read about it here.

We are writing to request you reach out to your member of Congress’s health staffer TODAY (4/17/2020) to ask them to join a letter to US House Leadership currently in circulation. The letter is being led by US Representatives Cartwright, Dean, Keller, Meuser, and Wild out of Pennsylvania, and is picking up support from other states representing Look-Alikes. The letter 1) explains the circumstances and needs of Look-Alikes and 2) asks that the healthcare and stimulus packages currently being discussed include funding for Look-Alikes, not just FQHC grantees.

We need requests to hit their inboxes today, by 6 PM EST. If you’re interested in helping out, follow these instructions.

An open letter to Jim Macrae of HRSA, penned by a fellow LAL administrator. PLEASE READ AND SHARE WIDELY.

11 Look-Alikes took our survey. We’ve published the results. Read about it here.

Now this is what we’re talkin about! NACHC penned a letter to Republican and Democratic party leadership on April 8th, asking they “permit Look-Alikes to receive supplementary emergency funding provided in response to the pandemic.” That Section 330 be amended, to include Look-Alikes, “deeming them eligible to receive supplemental awards.”

On Tuesday, HRSA announced it would retool its COVID-19 survey for community health centers. The survey requests many of the same data points we ask in our LAL Administrators Survey. It should hit your inbox by Friday, if not Monday - at the latest. For weeks, HRSA was requesting this data from grantees and as of Tuesday, has decided to open this process up to Look-Alikes as well.

Fellow Look-Alikes, when you receive your first prompt to complete the survey, please request that HRSA separate the data between grantees and Look-Alikes so we can examine the disparity.

One of our fellow Look-Alikes, the Wright Center for Community Health (Scranton, PA) has installed a six-bay, negative-pressure tent by the front door of its Mid Valley clinic, the busiest it oversees. Patients must pass through the tent, where they are screened for COVID-19. Read about it here!

Today, HRSA awarded 1,387 community health centers more than $1.3 billion to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Look-Alikes, because of their designation, are not eligible to receive any of this funding, though they adhere to the same standards of quality and compliance as their fellow FQHC grantees. We’ve published the formulas used to calculate CPRSAA and CARES Act funding. Calculate what you would have received and tell us how you would have spent these funds, had you been awarded.

Did you write to HRSA asking that they overlook your designation status amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and award your Look-Alike CPRSAA funding? Was this the response you received?

April 3rd NACHC penned a letter requesting DHHS allocate an additional $3.1 billion in funding to CHCs from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund, asking that Look-Alikes receive an extra 20%.