SAC Health was awarded a $1.63 million grant from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information to retain and support its behavioral health workforce with additional benefits such as student loan repayment, stipends, and recruitment activities.
San Bernardino, CA, April 10, 2023 SAC Health announced the award of a $ 1.63 million grant from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information that will help retain existing behavioral health professionals. Through the Community-Based Organization (CBO) Behavioral Health Workforce Grant Program, SAC Health will be able to provide current behavioral health providers, who have been working at SAC Health for over five years, funding to support loan repayments. The grant will also help increase SAC Health’s behavioral health personnel through recruitment activities and cultivate professional growth with stipends for clinical master and doctoral education students.
The need for therapists, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists is greater than ever. Most of the region that SAC Health serves are deemed a Mental Health Care Professional Shortage Area as defined by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The shortage of behavioral health providers can impact low-income Medi-Cal members with long wait times for patients seeking treatment, limited access to care in certain areas, and overall reduced quality of care.
SAC Health continues to expand to meet the needs of the region. “SAC Health understands the importance of providing high-quality behavioral health care to our patients. Thanks to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, we will be able to expand the number of behavioral health professionals, thus increasing access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment, including medication assisted treatment programming,” says Jason Lohr, MD, President and CEO of SAC Health.
SAC Health is a Federally Qualified Health Center with twelve locations throughout the Inland Empire. Serving over 50,000 patients in 2022, with over 97 percent being at or below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Line, SAC Health is a safety-net clinic providing high quality patient-centered care throughout the region.
About SAC Health
SAC Health is the largest specialty-based and teaching health center (THC) Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in the nation. SAC Health provides comprehensive services to underserved areas and populations including Medi-Cal and Medicare patients. SAC Health is recognized as a Level-3 Patient-Centered Medical Home by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and has over 100 community partnerships that enable the health to provide whole-person care to all its patients. SAC Health provides care in ten locations in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, including services in family medicine; pediatrics and pediatric specialties; obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine and medical specialties; family dentistry; behavioral health; surgical specialties and more. More information on how to become a patient at SAC Health is available online at sachealth.org.
