Advocates for Community Health (ACH) is grateful to the Commonwealth Fund for its 2024 National Survey of Federally Qualified Health Centers, which demonstrates the critical importance of these safety net clinics to our nation’s underserved communities while showing in real time the barriers they face in delivering much-needed care.

The survey shows that health centers are working hard to meet the growing health and social needs of their communities. For example, a vast majority of CHCs offer expanded hours and timely appointments, to help patients when they need it most. A growing number screen patients for unmet social and economic needs, to help address the issues outside of the exam room that affect overall health and wellbeing. And most have vastly expanded costly and critically important services like telehealth and substance use disorder treatment since the last survey was conducted in 2018.

However, while health centers are on the front lines of our nation’s most pressing health care challenges, federal funding for health center programs has failed to keep up with inflation or health centers’ growing patient populations and need for services. Further, the Commonwealth Fund survey reveals growing workforce challenges for health centers, with over 70 percent of respondents reporting primary care physician, nurse, or mental health professional shortages in 2024. This, combined with shrinking 340B program savings and the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic, has created a perfect storm that Congress is overdue to address. If Congress fails to provide the funding health centers need, many will have to roll back services or close their doors altogether.

Advocates for Community Health is calling on Congress to enact a long-term and robust Community Health Center Fund reauthorization before the Fund expires on December 31, 2024, to ensure that health centers have the resources they need to continue to serve their patients. Patients throughout the country count on community health centers for their care, and now community health centers are counting on Congress to ensure they can care for patients now and into the future.