New Mexico has been facing a shortage of health care providers for years, especially in rural areas. The state Health Care Authority is hoping to alleviate that strain and fill in gaps with a new support center.
Rural health care providers are often juggling more than patient care, especially in communities where access to health care is already limited.
Elisa Wrede, acting Rural Health Director for the HCA, said there’s a lot of pressure on providers.
“We have a lot of independent, small practices that spend what we call pajama time, at night on their own having to do billing and other work to really keep their business going,” said Wrede.
So the HCA is creating the Center for Rural Health Sustainability & Innovation to provide technical assistance and shared services. The HCA is looking at partnerships that would provide technical assistance and shared services. Wrede said the hope is to strengthen rural health care systems that are already complex and not easily accessible.
“People right now are spending 4 to 5 hours driving to get the care that they need,” Wrede said.
Wrede said this is just a part of a federally funded 5-year program through the Rural Health Transformation Program. New Mexico was awarded just over $211 million.
The HCA has put out a request for proposals to find vendors who can provide assistance to providers. Those are due by June 4th.
