The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded $94 million to health centers across the country to help treat prescription opioid and heroin abuse, and Jordan Valley Community Health Center is among the recipients.
The Springfield nonprofit health care clinic is slated to receive $406,250, which ties it with the Community Health Center of Central Missouri in Linn for the largest award in the state. In all, HHS is allocating $2.38 million to seven centers in the Show-Me State, and Jordan Valley is the only grant recipient in the Queen City.
Nationwide, HHS is distributing Affordable Care Act funding to 271 health centers in in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to improve and expand the delivery of substance-abuse services, with a focus on treatment of opioid use disorders in underserved populations, according to a news release.
“The opioid epidemic is one of the most pressing public health issues in the United States today,” HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in the release. “Expanding access to medication-assisted treatment and integrating these services in health centers bolsters nationwide efforts to curb opioid misuse and abuse, supports approximately 124,000 new patients accessing substance-use treatment for recovery and helps save lives.”
Roughly 4.5 million people in the U.S. were nonmedical prescription pain reliever users in 2013, and an estimated 289,000 were heroin users, the federal agency reports. HHS also estimates the number of unintentional overdose deaths from prescription pain medications nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2013, and deaths related to heroin increased 39 percent between 2012 and 2013.
The grants, administered by the HHS Health Resources and Services Administration, are designed to increase the number of patients screened for substance use disorders, connect users to treatment and help train health providers on how to make informed prescription decisions. The money is estimated to help centers hire 800 new providers to treat nearly 124,000 new patients.
