\u201cThe federal government has the 330 grant set up to help community health centers across the country,” said Amistad CEO Dr. Eric Baggerman<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 For many healthcare clinics, federal grant funding is a crucial resource to keep their doors open. In many cases, it can make up a sizeable chunk of their budget.<\/p>\n
For many in the community, health clinics are an essential bridge for those who may not be able to afford regular healthcare. Amistad Community Health CEO Dr. Eric Baggerman says 330 grant funding plays a large role. He says it makes up roughly 20% of their operational budget and that without it, they might have to scale back services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federal government has the 330 Grant set up to help community health centers across the country, 1,500 community health centers to be able to take care of everybody without insurance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Baggerman says that funding, while needed, doesn’t come easy. He noted their renewal came on Jan. 22 and was set to expire seven days later, on Jan. 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt regularly needs renewal, so this is not funding that continues on for a five-year period. In fact, over the last few years, it’s been renewed for six weeks or three months, or the longest period of nine months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Baggerman adds that without that funding, operations would look very different.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes up between 15 and 17 percent of our budget, so while it’s not half of it, it’s certainly important because many of the things we do with that money there’s no other funding for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just Amistad that depends on 330 grant funding. Bill Hoelscher, CEO of the Coastal Bend Wellness Foundation, says those funds are a lifeline for their operations too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have noticed over the last two years is that the need for community health services has increased significantly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hoelscher says while they are currently under renewal status, if those funds ever went away, the community would feel the impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe funding has not increased in many years, but the need has. So it has not just devastated our agency but caused significant issues in the community because that would be over 4,000 people who are no longer able to access medical care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Both agencies currently have their 330 grant funds in place. However, both say they must submit annual reports showing exactly how they serve and aid the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe federal government has the 330 grant set up to help community health centers across the country,” said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-151689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}