With limited funding going back into the Healthy Opportunities Pilot Program and plans underway to create a health-focused care hub in New Hanover County, local nonprofit leaders are staying optimistic.
HOP is an experimental program that uses Medicaid money to help people with food, transportation, housing, and mental health. Its main premise is that those things, often referred to as the social determinants of health, directly contribute to people’s health.
Last summer, the program was suspended due to a lack of state funding. When the state passed its new budget last week, it restored $25 million to the program. That was through a one-time appropriation of $9 million in state money and $16 million in federal money. According to North Carolina Health News, state officials originally asked for $80 million to restore HOP.
Sarah Ridout is the HOP program director at Community Care of Lower Cape Fear. CCLCF oversees the pilot’s implementation in Southeastern North Carolina. She said the state only giving $9 million of its own money meant HOP would receive a smaller federal funding match. If $80 million in state funding were given to the pilot, it would also get upwards of $200 million in federal money.
Ridout also said she doesn’t know how the restored funds will be distributed yet. However, she said she expects to hear more from state officials sometime this month.
Some lawmakers and advocates have concerns about reimplementing the program after a year on hold. Democratic State Senator Julie Mayfield told NC Health News, “It’s unclear whether all three regions can get started again, since the whole infrastructure has been degraded since the program stopped last July.”
Ridout said she’s not as concerned about the process of getting things back up and running. She said, “We just had a meeting the other week where we got to talk to all the community-based organizations that we work with. A lot of them are ready. Will it take some time to lift back up again? Yes, because it should.”
Overall, Ridout is happy the budget restored program funding. She said, “I think there’s a lot of excitement, because it was very challenging when Healthy Opportunities paused in our region. Not only did community-based organizations really lose a funding stream to help support the great work that they do in our community, but we also saw people disengage from their health plans and from their connection to care.”
She’s also excited about CCLCF’s community care hub. The project is currently in its planning stages. The hub could serve New Hanover County with a centralized spot for people to get help from nonprofits providing social services and addressing basic needs like food. Ridout said the facility would specifically target any resources and services that improve health outcomes.
The community care hub project received a grant of about $2.5 million from The Endowment last month, adding on to a past planning grant of $1.5 million. The Endowment is a foundation created by the sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center to Novant Health. Over the last five years, it’s invested hundreds of millions of dollars in projects in New Hanover County.
Ridout said that the new money is being used to start getting the care hub off the ground. She also said HOP won’t last forever, as it’s only been authorized at the federal level through 2029 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She said she thinks the hub could help people with healthcare access and the social determinants of health after HOP is gone.
Ridout said, “We want to create something and develop something in our region that remains sustainable beyond 2029. Hospital systems, health plans, local businesses, and even potentially local government could come to the care hub.”