Empowering Communities for Lasting Change

WHAT?

What is the Oregon’s CCBF opportunity? CBOs have an opportunity to apply for significant support and funding through the Medicaid Waiver 1115 Community Capacity Building Funding to:

Increase organizational expertise and capacity to support the health and wellbeing of their priority populations and

Develop organizational infrastructure, expertise, and partnerships that will provide long term sustainability and funding as a Health Related Social Need (HRSN) provider.

What makes the 1115 Waiver HRSN Provider opportunity so significant?

The CCBF and HRSN Provider opportunity reflects a national, state and regional paradigm shift that restructures health funding to strengthen community based organizations – recognizing their importance as essential partners to improve community health outcomes and advance health equity. As part of the 1115 Medicaid Waiver, Oregon has been approved to spend up to $119 million in Community Capacity Building Funds (CCBF), specifically to support investments to enable partners to provide HRSN services. Additional funding, beyond CCBF, are expected to support and sustain HRSN services and partnerships long term.

For the 1115 Waiver to be successful, health care and social organizations must learn how to work together. Health care organizations and community-based organizations have traditionally worked in very different ways, with different systems, and in their own silos. The 1115 Medicaid Waiver represents a tremendous amount of money, resources, and support to community-based organizations to build capacity in providing HRSN services to community members in partnership with health systems and Medicaid payors.

This is an opportunity to bring unprecedented resources and sustainable funding to support community-based organizations to provide their needed social services. If there is readiness to take advantage of the opportunity, community based organizations will be able to access significant resources to advance their aims, build capacity, and better provide support to the communities with which they work.

This will be big work, and challenging, but it is a tremendous opportunity right now and will be the wave of the future.

What are HRSN’s?

HRSNs are “Health Related Social Needs”. HRSN refers to the social and economic needs that individuals experience that affect their ability to maintain their health and well-being. They include things such as housing instability, housing quality, food insecurity, employment, personal safety, lack of transportation and affordable utilities, and more.

The Community Capacity Building Funding is focused on four HRSNs. Based on alignment with a CBO’s current services and strategic planning, CBOs could apply for funding to develop capacity to provide one, more, or all four HRSNs.

Climate Services

Housing Supports

Nutrition Supports

Outreach and Education

*See separate attachment “CSN-CCO+HRSN+CCBF+Webinar_02222024_V8” for further details of the four HRSNs.

What are the systems and funding contexts?

The 1115 Medicaid Waiver reflects a national movement towards aligning social care and health care. This movement recognizes that clinical care, such as doctor visits, hospital stays, and other medical services, are not the major contributors to individual and community health. Non-medical determinants such as the environment, health behaviors, and social factors are greater contributors to premature death than quality of health care.

What are the categories of capacity required for CBO’s to maximize the HRSN Provider opportunity?

The HRSN paradigm shift requires development of new systems, workflows, technology and other capacities for community-based organizations to be able to communicate, coordinate, collaborate, and be compensated- in partnership with health systems. There are four allowable categories for funding:

Technology

Development of Business or Operational Practices

Workforce development

Outreach, education, and convening

*See separate attachment “HRSN-Infrastructure-Protocol” for further details of the four funding

The planning and transition for a CBO to be a HRSN provider will be a significant process. CBOs will need to build upon work in progress and develop capacity in the four categories of a) technology b) business practices c) workforce development and d) outreach, education, and convening. Each of the four categories for development is attached to resources and funding. Capacity development in each and all of the categories may be an option to fully realize the opportunity of becoming a sustainably funded HRSN Provider.

Eric McNair Scott led Waiver 1115 programs as Director of Community Clinical Linkages between 2017 and 2023 with SW Washington Accountable Community of Health. He brings experience and expertise in program development and management in all four of the funding categories: a) technology b) business practices c) workforce development and d) outreach, education, and convening. Additionally, he is a current member of Partnership to Align Social Care (www.partnership2asc.org), a national group of “leaders among community-based organizations, health plans and systems, national associations and advocacy organizations, philanthropic organizations, foundation, academic institutions, federal agencies, and other key participants collaborating to co-design a strategy to enable successful partnerships between health care organizations and networks of community-based organizations (CBOs) delivering social care services.”

The CCBF application opportunity opened March 1, 2024 and the final day for submitting the application is 5:00 PM May 31st, 2024.

Eric can provide support to CBO leadership and staff to consider the steps and decisions needed for application. Services to support CCBF application success may include the following:

Assess alignment of the CCBF opportunity with CBO’s strategic plan and sustainability planning

Conduct an analysis of current services and capacity to provide support related to the four HRSN (Climate, Housing, Food, Outreach and Engagement)

Assess current capacity and readiness for further capacity development related to the four funding categories for CCBF and development as a HRSN Provider (Technology, Development of Operational and Business Practices, Workforce, Outreach & Education & Convening)

Identify CBO’s’s aims in applying for the CCBF with regard to each funding category (Technology, Development of Operational and Business Practices, Workforce, Outreach & Education & Convening)

Outline high level changes /work plan that CBO will make through the CCBF opportunity that will improve capacity for HRSN provision in each funding category (Technology, Development of Operational and Business Practices, Workforce, Outreach & Education & Convening)

Clarify what will be measured that will tell CBO and funders that changes have led to improvement and capacity building in each funding category (Technology, Development of Operational and Business Practices, Workforce, Outreach & Education & Convening)

Develop budget including for each funding category (Technology, Development of Operational and Business Practices, Workforce, Outreach & Education & Convening)

Leverage the process of steps 1-7 for development and submission of CCBF Application and budget before deadline of May 31st, 2024