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Who are the HRSA peer reviewers? An anecdote from the New Access Points (NAP) Program

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) know that the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), like some other federal agencies, uses peer reviewers for proposals. That can lead to some entertaining coincidences and collisions. We were recently hired by a client who had previously served on a review panel for the last New Access Points competition. In talking with him, I mentioned that we’d written a funded NAP proposal about a year ago for a client in an unusual location. It turned out that our new client had been on the review panel for that proposal (which, fortunately, was funded).

Peer review can in effect shrink the size of the grant world. Peer reviewers also (usually) know something about the programs and processes being discussed, which isn’t necessarily the case with staff reviewers. In some funding agencies, like the Department of Labor, peer reviewers generally aren’t used; if there aren’t enough reviewers, the DOL may grab staffers from other federal agencies to review proposals. That implies grant writers should explain more about basic ideas, rather than assuming that reviewers actual understand the program they’re reviewing. So for staff-reviewed proposals, it’s a good idea to explain more than might be necessary in peer reviewed proposals, since the staffers may not be up-to-date on, say, prisoner reentry common practices, or the finer parts of the parole system.

Because of the small-world effect in peer-reviewed proposals, it can be particularly important to turn in high-quality proposals, because you never know when your proposal is going to act as an inadvertent resume. If you’re part of the Greater Seattle FQHC and someone from the Greater Nashville FQHC reads and likes your proposal as a reviewer, you may much later get a call from them offering you a job.

Don’t underestimate the power of “avoiding social embarrassment” in the list of motivations underlying human behavior.

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Is it Collaboration or Competition that HRSA Wants in the Service Area Competition (SAC) and New Access Points (NAP) FOAs?

HRSA just issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA, which is HRSA-speak for RFP) for the Service Area Competition (SAC). SAC FOAs are issued each year for different cities and rural areas in which HRSA has existing section 330 grantees, including Community Health Centers (CHCs), Migrant Health Center (MHCs), Health Care for the Homeless (HCHs), and Public Housing Primary Cares (PHPCs). Without going too far inside baseball, as section 330 grantee contracts expire, HRSA groups them together and forces them to reapply while encouraging other organizations to complete for the contracts. Hence the word “competition” in SAC.

SAC applicants are required to respond to a section of the FOA called “Collaboration” by describing “both formal and informal collaboration and coordination of services with other health care providers, specifically existing section 330 grantees, FQHC Look-Alikes, rural health clinics, critical access hospitals and other federally-supported grantees.” I’m guessing that if your organization is applying to take the contract away from the current Section 330 grantee, that grantee is probably not going to be in much of a mood to collaborate with your application and give you a letter of support.

To put a requirement for “collaboration” in a FOA that uses the term “competition” in its title demonstrates HRSA’s cluelessness. A particularly fun aspect of the SAC FOA is that HRSA pats itself on the back by stating in the Executive Summary that “For FY 2011, the HRSA has revised the SAC application in order to streamline and clarify [emphasis added] the application instructions.” The instructions are 112 single-spaced pages and the response is limited to 150 pages! And there a two-step application process involving an initial application submitted through our old friend Grants.gov, as well as a second application with a second deadline through a HRSA portal called Electronic Handbooks (EHBs). That’s what I call streamlining and clarifying. I would hate to see the results if HRSA tried to complicate and obscure the application process.

HRSA has another FOA process underway for the New Access Points (NAP) program, which I recently wrote about in “The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Finally Issues a New Access Points (NAP) FOA: $250,000,000 and 350 Grants! (Plus Some Important History).” A quick search of the FOAs reveal that the term “collaboration” is used at least 32 times in the NAP FOA, compared to 8 times in the SAC FOA. I suppose collaboration is four times as important in writing a NAP proposal that in writing a SAC proposal. For those with inquiring minds, the word “competition” is not used at all in the NAP FOA. As far as I can tell, HRSA does not let NAP applicants know that, if they are successful, they will eventually have to compete to keep their contract, while simultaneously committing to collaborating with their competitors. Since I have written many NAP and SAC proposals, I know how to thread this word needle by writing out of both sides of my Mac. But novice grant writers and new HRSA applicants will find this a challenge.

For more of my reasoning on the essential pointlessness of requiring grant applicants to profess their undying commitment to collaboration, see “What Exactly Is the Point of Collaboration in Grant Proposals? The Department of Labor Community-Based Job Training (CBJT) Program is a Case in Point.”

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The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Finally Issues a New Access Points (NAP) FOA: $250,000,000 and 350 Grants! (Plus Some Important History)

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) just issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA, which is HRSA-speak for RFP) for the New Access Points (NAP) program. There is $250,000,000 available and 350 grants up to $650/000/year for five years! The deadline is November 17. This the first NAP FOA in over three years, and the NAP program is the best way to fund primary health care and prevention for medically indigent folks. In other words, this is a great opportunity. The real question is, where has the NAP program been for the last three years?

I have no idea why HRSA has not issued any NAP FOAs lately, but it may have something to do with the change in administrations and the extended health care reform debate. The NAP program was greatly expanded during the Bush administration, and HRSA issued NAP FOAs frequently during the early and mid years of the decade. We wrote many funded NAP grants and became very familiar with the program in the process. Then funding for NAP was either not included in HRSA appropriations or HRSA slowed down the grant making process, causing NAP to disappear beneath the waves a year or so before President Obama assumed office. But NAP funding was included in the recently passed Health Reform Act of 2010. This Act authorizes dozens of new competitive federal grant programs, as well as some old friends like NAP, and voila, HRSA issues this enormous FOA, so it seems that the NAP program is once again in favor.

For those not in the know, to be eligible for a NAP grant, the applicant has to be, or agree to set-up, a nonprofit “Health Center” under Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 USCS § 254b), or, as they are termed in the trade, a Section 330 provider. Older terms that are sometimes used, like Federal Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) or FQHC Look-Alikes. Without getting too far inside baseball, the intent of such health centers is to provide access to patients who are eligible for public insurance programs, such as Medicaid, Medicare and SCHIP, or have no insurance. Although services are nominally provided on a sliding scale and no one is supposed to be turned away, Section 330 providers have to keep the doors open and, like all health care providers, they prefer patients with third party payers.

The entire Section 330/FQHC/FQHC Look-Alike system grew up to replace the chaotic but never dull “free clinic” model of the late 1960s and 1970s, which was pioneered to serve assorted hippies, druggies, runaways and other youth by the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic and LA Free Clinic. When I moved to LA in 1974, I almost went to work for the LA Free Clinic’s founding Executive Director, Lenny Somberg, who was a very interesting guy but was unfortunately killed by an intruder a few months after I met him.

While I didn’t get the job, I eventually volunteered and served on the board of the Harbor Free Clinic in San Pedro*, another one of the original free clinics. The basic idea of free clinics was to use volunteer docs and allied health professionals to provide free health care while not accepting Medicaid or any other insurance. Although some organizations retain “Free Clinic” in their name, I don’t think any still use this model, having shifted long ago to some version of the Section 330/FQHC paradigm—in other words, they are primarily Medicaid/Medicare providers and use paid medical staff.

These days, if an organization wants to provide primary health care for the uninsured, publicly insured or underinsured, they become a Section 330 provider, and a NAP grant is the organization’s ticket into the Medicaid reimbursement world. This is the first opportunity to compete for a NAP grant in three years, so start writing f you’re eligible. Who knows when the next NAP FOA will pop up in the federal trough?


*Pronounced “Peedro” by residents, not “Paydro,” and often affectionately termed, “The city where the sewer meets the sea.” I lived in Pedro for a few years and can attest to its many charms. Among other things, Pedro often turns up as a locale in movies and TV, including the most recent episode of my favorite TV show, Mad Men, “The Good News.”