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BETHESDA, MD — Community Health Center leaders from across nation, to include one from Ahoskie, will discuss the urgent need for lawmakers to pass sustainable funding for the Community Health Center Fund (CHCF) at a virtual news briefing scheduled for 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 18.

RCCHC’s board chair, Deborah Morrison, Chair of the Roanoke-Chowan Community Health Center Board of Directors, will be among those featured at the news briefing.

The briefing, hosted by the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), comes as House lawmakers are scheduled to consider the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act (H.R. 5378), and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is set to consider the Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Act.

Both bills extend and increase funding for the more than 1,400 health centers nationwide that provide care to more than 31 million patients nationwide, including 8.8 million children. The bills also extend and increase funding for key primary care workforce programs – the National Health Service Corps and the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education – that are essential to building a strong health care workforce and addressing provider shortages in underserved areas.

Unless Congress acts, funding for health centers and these workforce programs will expire later this month.

Health center leaders will discuss how the funding uncertainty is already affecting health centers’ operations and creating disruptions in hiring and planning services for patients.