Medical Family Therapy in Community Health Centers

Community health centers (CHCs) provide affordable, accessible care to patients in urban and rural areas across the nation. Health centers must be located in underserved locales, governed by a community-majority board, provide a core set of primary care services, and offer a sliding fee scale to patients under 200% of the federal poverty level (National Associations of Community Health Centers, 2017a). Based on most recent figures, health centers serve more than 25 million patients (1 out of every 15 Americans), 71% of whom are at the 100% federal poverty level and below and 83% are uninsured or publicly insured (NACHC, 2017a). Health centers employ over 8400 mental health and substance abuse staff and provide access to these services in the most underserved communities in the nation. In 2015, over 8.3 million clinic visits were provided for mental health or substance abuse issues; this represents a 56% growth in behavioral health visits since 2010 (NACHC, 2017b).