The Bureau of Primary Care includes several programs focusing on health care for some of Utah's most vulnerable populations.
During the 2015 General Session, the Legislature appropriated for Fiscal Year 2016, $4,583,400 from all sources for Primary Care. This is a 16.9 percent increase from Fiscal Year 2015 revised estimated amounts from all sources. The total includes $3,098,200 from the General/Education Funds, a reduction of 7.3 percent from revised Fiscal Year 2015 estimates.
In addition to statewide compensation and internal service fund cost increases, the following appropriation adjustments were made during the 2015 General Session:
Primary Care Grant Program - UCA 26-10b-105 requires an annual report on the implementation of the grant program for primary care services. In FY 2014 $757,900 in grants served 29,500 individuals. The FY 2014 report is available at http://health.utah.gov/legislativereports/StatePrimaryCareGrants12-2014.pdf).
Office of Primary Care and Rural Health
The Office of Primary Care and Rural Health serves as a resource for Utah's rural, multi-cultural, and medically underserved communities. The office works with communities that need assistance in conducting needs assessments, recruiting health care professionals, grant writing, identifying sources of funding, and implementing other projects related to decreasing health disparities and increasing access to primary health care.
Federally-funded Functions
The office also serves as the federally-funded State Office of Rural Health and as the Primary Care Office which both manage the federal National Health Service Corps and the Conrad State 30 J-1 Visa Waiver Program. The federal funds require the office to assist in the recruitment and retention of health care professionals to work in medically underserved areas of Utah. The Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant Program assists in strengthening rural health by: (1) helping small hospitals obtain critical access hospitals licenses, which qualifies them for cost-based reimbursement for Medicare acute inpatient and outpatient services, (2) encouraging the development of rural-centric health networks, and (3) offering grants to help implement a critical access hospital program in the context of broader initiatives to strengthen the rural health care infrastructure. The Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program assists small rural hospitals to help them: (1) pay for costs related to the implementation of Medicare Prospective Payment Systems, (2) become accountable care organizations focused on improving quality outcomes, (3) fund payment bundling in order to build accountability across the continuum of care, and (4) fund value-based purchasing in order to improve data collection activities in order to facilitate reporting to hospital compare.
The State Primary Care Grants Program for Medically Underserved Populations makes grants to public and non-profit entities for the cost of providing primary health care services to medically underserved populations. The program strives to decrease the number of individuals without access to appropriate, high quality, effective primary health care by making these grants to qualified provider organizations. The program targets Utah's low-income populations, who have no health insurance, or whose health insurance does not cover primary health care services and do not qualify for Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program, or other government insurance programs. The scope of this program includes populations in medically underserved areas, individuals with chronic diseases, the homeless, Native Americans, seasonal and migrant farm workers, and other disadvantaged groups.
Assistance to Persons with Bleeding Disorders
The Assistance to Persons with Bleeding Disorders Program makes grants available to assist persons with bleeding disorders with the cost of obtaining services for hemophilia or the cost of insurance premiums for coverage of services. The program assists persons who meet the following criteria:
- Medically diagnosed with hemophilia or a bleeding disorder
- Not eligible for Medicaid or Children's Health Insurance Program
- One of the following criteria:
- insurance coverage that excludes coverage for hemophilia services
- exceeded their insurance plan's annual maximum benefits
- exceeded their annual or lifetime maximum benefits payable under the Comprehensive Health Insurance Pool (UCA 31A-29)
- insurance coverage available under private health insurance, Utah mini-COBRA coverage, or federal COBRA coverage, but the premiums for that coverage are at or greater than 7.5 percent of a person's annual adjusted gross income.
The monthly caseload is the number of people served via primary care grants.
COBI contains unaudited data as presented to the Legislature by state agencies at the time of publication. For audited financial data see the State of Utah's Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports.