To the Editor:
Community Health Centers provide high-quality medical, dental, and behavioral health care to 440,000 people across Connecticut. They serve all people, regardless of ability to pay, and are critical health care providers and employers. Approximately 60% of Connecticut health center patients rely on HUSKY/Medicaid. Unfortunately, today, Connecticut’s health centers are in a financial crisis, and the consequences are dire.
Gov. Ned Lamont and his administration have the power to end this crisis immediately. They know it – and have known the crisis was building for years – yet, they have failed to act.
UCFS Healthcare (UCFS) is one of the community health centers caring for the Medicaid population in an expansive region in eastern Connecticut. As the UCFS Board Chairperson and a patient of UCFS for the last 32 years, this issue hits home for me. When I was a single mom with Medicaid insurance, I brought my two children to UCFS. I worried about many things, but healthcare was never one of them because of UCFS. My son now brings his family. As I aged, it was UCFS who fought to get me the care I needed for my Rheumatoid Arthritis. If not for UCFS I would not be here today.
For nearly 24 years, the Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS) has ignored its legal obligation to adjust Medicaid reimbursement rates to reflect the actual cost of care. The result is that community health centers have been subsidizing Connecticut’s Medicaid program at a loss of $74M in 2024 alone. Now, after 18 months of fruitless negotiations with DSS and the Lamont administration, the Community Health Center Association of Connecticut is taking legal action to compel them to do one simple thing – ensure Connecticut’s community health centers receive the reimbursement they are legally entitled to and protect the healthcare needs in our communities.
The issue at hand is clear: DSS is violating state and federal law by failing to adjust Medicaid reimbursement rates in response to changes in the services health centers provide. Legally, UCFS must be reimbursed at a rate that fully covers our costs to the Medicaid patients we serve.
Now vital services are at risk. UCFS has been forced to suspend some dental services, and other health centers have cut back as well. Even DSS acknowledges that Connecticut’s Medicaid rates for medical and dental services are at least 20% below our neighboring states.
The failure of DSS to address this issue is more than a legal violation – it is a self-created public health crisis that impacts our community, and the whole state. It’s time for Governor Lamont and DSS to do the right thing for health centers and our patients and comply with the law.
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Kievits serves as Board Chair of UCFS Healthcare in Norwich, CT