By Chad Tillman, VP and GM of Care Coordination Solutions, and Elizabeth McElhiney, Director of Government Affairs and Policy at Verisma
August 27, 2026
The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) August 13 announcement of $102 million in New Access Points awards is welcome news for Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). The funding is intended to help 158 new and existing health centers establish 415 new sites and expand comprehensive primary care access for nearly one million more people nationwide.
For organizations already operating with thin margins, growing patient demand, and persistent workforce shortages, the opportunity is significant. But expanding access is only part of the story. To turn new funding into measurable community impact, FQHCs will need the operational infrastructure to document care, close referral loops, capture outside clinical information, and follow through on the administrative work keeping patients moving through the system.
The care coordination lens: access only matters if patients make it through the loop
From a care coordination perspective, the promise of this funding isn’t simply that it creates more front doors into care. It’s that those new access points can be supported by stronger pathways from patient identification to intervention to documented resolution. FQHCs are often the primary access point for patients with complex needs, chronic conditions, transportation barriers, and limited specialty access. When those patients need care beyond the four walls of the health center, referrals can quickly become the point where access breaks down.
Those breakdowns are where care gaps often widen. A patient may receive a referral to a specialist, but the appointment may never be scheduled. The patient may be seen, but the consult note may never make it back into the chart. A diagnostic report may exist but remain outside the electronic health record (EHR). A prior authorization may be submitted, but approval, denial or delay may go untracked. Each missed handoff creates clinical risk, compliance exposure, and avoidable cost.
For FQHCs without enough staff to manually chase every referral, document every follow-up, retrieve every outside record, and monitor every authorization, care coordination support can create the practical capacity needed to keep patients moving through the system. That support helps teams identify open gaps, obtain specialist consults and other external documentation, incorporate those records into the patient chart, and maintain a reliable trail of outreach and follow-up. In other words, it helps convert expanded access into coordinated, documented care.
The regulatory lens: funding creates opportunity, but documentation proves impact
From a regulatory perspective, HRSA’s investment isn’t just an access opportunity — it’s also a documentation challenge. Grant-funded growth needs clear proof of who was served, how, and what happened next, which is already part of HRSA’s reporting requirements. As patient volume rises, documentation must keep up, not because HRSA says so directly, but because gaps in the record undercut the results the funding is supposed to deliver. Prior authorizations matter here too — they’re a separate burden, but one that can just as easily get in the way of the access this funding creates.
Outside records are especially important. Specialist consult notes, imaging results, discharge summaries, lab reports, behavioral health documentation, and other external records can materially affect the patient’s care plan. If those documents aren’t retrieved, reviewed, indexed and placed into the correct chart, the organization may lack the complete clinical picture needed to demonstrate coordinated, high-quality care.
Prior authorizations deserve comparable operational attention, even though they sit outside HRSA’s own reporting requirements. The administrative work around authorizations isn’t just transactional — it’s part of the patient access story. FQHCs need a consistent way to document authorization requests – supporting clinical information, payer responses, denials, appeals, approvals, and follow-up. Without that visibility, patients can experience delays, staff can duplicate effort, and leadership may struggle to understand where revenue, access, and care continuity are being interrupted.
The financial angle: the right operational model can help funding go further
FQHCs are routinely asked to do more with less. Many are absorbing higher demand while facing staffing shortages, funding uncertainty, rising administrative burden, and pressure to sustain access for underserved communities. In that environment, the question isn’t simply, “Can we qualify for funding?” It’s, “Can we use this funding to create durable capacity, measurable impact, and financial relief?”
Care coordination and documentation support can help FQHCs extend the value of HRSA dollars by reducing leakage across the referral process, improving completion of follow-up care, and supporting more complete clinical records. It can also help prevent avoidable rework, missed revenue opportunities tied to authorization breakdowns, and downstream costs associated with delayed diagnosis, unmanaged chronic conditions, or incomplete care transitions.
The financial value isn’t only in the grant itself. It’s in how effectively FQHCs convert that funding into operational throughput: more referrals completed, more outside documents captured, fewer authorizations lost in limbo, stronger documentation for reporting, and better visibility into where patients are getting stuck.
Practical steps FQHCs should consider now
As FQHCs evaluate the HRSA opportunity, they should assess whether their current workflows can support the level of access, reporting, and follow-up the funding is meant to advance. Key questions include:
- Do we have a reliable process for identifying open referrals and confirming whether patients completed the recommended care?
- Can we consistently retrieve specialist consult notes and other external records and ensure they’re filed into the correct patient chart?
- Do our teams have visibility into prior authorization status, denials, appeals, approvals, and unresolved follow-up?
- Are staff spending time on manual tracking that could be supported through a more scalable workflow?
- Can we demonstrate care gap closure through complete, auditable documentation?
Turning expansion into evidence
The HRSA investment is a meaningful signal that expanding access to primary care remains a national priority. For FQHCs, the opportunity is especially powerful because it aligns funding with mission: reaching more patients, closing gaps earlier, and supporting healthier communities.
But access alone isn’t enough. The work must be coordinated, documented and visible. By strengthening referral management, outside record retrieval, chart documentation, and prior authorization follow-up, FQHCs can help ensure new access points translate into completed care – and completed care is supported by the evidence needed to prove impact.
For health centers working with limited staff and increasing demand, that combination – expanded funding, stronger coordination, and better documentation – may be the difference in opening more doors and closing more care gaps.
As FQHCs evaluate how to pursue and operationalize this funding, Verisma can help teams identify where referral follow-up, outside record capture, chart documentation, and prior authorization tracking are creating friction – and build scalable workflows to close those gaps. Explore how Verisma’s care coordination and regulatory expertise can support your organization’s HRSA funding strategy by contacting Verisma today.
