Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) grant writers

The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) offers funding for many health-related purposes, including Section 330 grants for Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs—sometimes called “Community Health Centers”), substance use disorder / opioid use disorder (SUD/OUD) treatment, healthcare provider education and training, Ryan White services for persons living with HIV/AIDs (PLWH/A), and numerous other healthcare and human services project concepts. While we’ve written too many funded HRSA grants to list, some of these include:

* Service Area Competition (SAC) grants for FQHCs; SAC NOFAs are published annually for select geographic areas on a rolling basis. FQHCs must apply every three years when the SAC NOFA for their service area is published to keep their Section 330 grants, which are often the “glue” holding FQHC budgets together. SAC NOFAs are competitive, so an existing FQHC is not guaranteed funding and must “defend their turf.” Technically incorrect or poorly written SAC applications can lead to organizational crisis, no matter how the FQHC has been around. HRSA annually published SAC NOFOs in the May to September timeframe. Four of the FY ’23 SAC NOFAs have been published so far this year, with two or three more to be soon published. Each SAC NOFO includes a link to this year’s SAC lookup table (SAAT), which includes the particular service area zip codes associated with each SAC NOFO.  Contact us if you’d like to know more, or if you’d like become an FQHC or FQHC Look-Alike (more on Look-Alikes is below).

* New Access Point (NAP) competitive grants to enable FQHCs and other nonprofit healthcare service providers to receive funding to open additional heath centers. When a non-FQHC receives a NAP grant, it automatically becomes an FQHC and receives all of the benefits of this designation. At least 51% of the members of an FQHC board must be healthcare consumers in the target service area.

* School-Based Health Site (SBSS) programs, which allow FQHCs to build out and/or operate sites at schools.

* Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) programs, which offer medication to opioid users in order to get those users off oxycodone, oxycontin, heroin, and related substances. The most frequently offered medication is Suboxone, which is a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, but other drugs may be used as well. Both HRSA and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) offer MAT treatment grant programs.

* Health outreach and education programs, which offer exactly what you’d expect.

* FQHC Look-Alike (LAL) applications, which allow organizations that want to provide primary healthcare to apply to be designated as an LAL. While this designation does not include a Section 330 grant for operations, LALs receive higher Medicaid reimbursement rates, which often may be the difference between surviving as an organization or closing the doors, malpractice coverage, access to the 340B Pharmacy program for discounted medications, and more. Consequently, many small for-profit and nonprofit primary care providers should consider applying to become an FQHC LAL. Unlike most HRSA programs, LAL applications may be submitted at any time.

* Ryan White grants to provide prevention and treatment services for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH/A).

* Several programs that target rural healthcare providers, including FQHCs.

HRSA grants can range in size from very small grants under $100,000 per year to enormous grants in the tens of millions of dollars per year. The sheer diversity of HRSA’s programs makes them hard to generalize about, since nonprofits, public agencies, school districts, colleges and universities, and businesses can all wind up being applicants for various HRSA grants. Our experience with HRSA grants means that we can help you get your piece of the HRSA grant pie: call us at 800.540.8906, ext. 1, or email us at seliger@seliger.com for more information.