The implementation of ground-breaking Health Related Social Needs (HRSN) benefits is an exciting opportunity. Oregon is leading the nation in this work. Together, we are building new bridges across health, housing, nutrition, and other community sectors that will enable us to use Medicaid funding to support some of our community members’ most pressing needs.  

The health care system cannot do this work alone. We need deep partnership from our community-based providers, culturally specific and responsive organizations, and public sector colleagues on this journey to equitably serve our community. 

The timeline for implementing these new services is tight, however. To be ready to launch the housing and nutrition benefits this fall and winter, Health Share has identified a need to focus our capacity building funds on a limited set of organizations. We believe that foundational investments in infrastructure and key service providers are critical for us to launch these benefits successfully on this short timeline.  

We do not take this decision lightly. We know that our smaller, culturally specific organizations need capacity building support to become HRSN Service Providers. We are committed to further supporting those organizations with resources outside of the CCBF funding pool and with CCBF dollars in years 2 and 3. We are also providing technical assistance at no cost to CBOs exploring whether they want to receive Medicaid funding for their services. Health Share is also planning to invest in infrastructure that will be available for all interested providers, such as a community-based care management platform that all providers can use to track their engagement with clients. 

Health Share is committed to transparency in our thinking and our decision-making and wanted to communicate this to potential applicants as soon as possible. In addition to the scoring rubric published by OHA, Health Share will be looking for applications in the following areas (click on document below). We appreciate the engagement of so many partners in this process and look forward to continued collaboration.