SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 On Monday, The Wright Center for Community Health announced it had been designated a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) by the US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile what I said might sound very technical, what it represents is something very simple,” said Deborah Kolsovski, the chair of The Wright Center for Community Health Board of Directors during her speech. “Greater access to care, greater stability for our Graduate Medial Education Safety-Net Consortium enterprise, and a healthier future for thousands of people throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 2019, when the Wright Center had been designated as an FQHC Look-Alike, it\u2019s expanded to serve over 39,000 patients from 2025-26, but now, the designation as a full FQHC opens the door to new federal grants and support from the federal government.<\/p>\n
The center says those new resources are crucial in expanding their operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost importantly, it\u2019ll allow us to continue to sustain and expand the whole person primary, medical, behavioral, mental health, and dental services that we offer to patients,” said President and CEO of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak.<\/p>\n
At the announcement, Congressman Rob Bresnahan received special thanks for leading a bipartisan congressional letter that supported pathways for FQHC lookalikes to become funded FQHC\u2019s and working with HRSA officials in showing the importance of increased funding for FQHC Look-Alikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have accessibility of a qualified primary care is just so fundamental,” said Congressman Bresnahan. “And now with a Look-Alike no more and being the real deal, this just expands the opportunity for various different new treatment services. The physical footprint into bringing health care closer to our residents. That\u2019s what\u2019s so game-changing about this designation.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the designation, the center announced plans to open its first center in Monroe County, the 16th across Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, and Wyoming counties.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did a lot of diligence in looking for one of the communities with the highest unmet need score,” said Dr. Thomas-Hemak. “And you know, I think that really polished our application and showed our commitment to go beyond the walls of what we currently do and deeper into meeting the needs of the regional community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new location will serve more than 2,000 Blakeslee patients annually while prioritizing people or families at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines.<\/p>\n
It will open in the late fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 On Monday, The Wright Center for Community Health announced it had been designated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-262851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}