Senator Montgomery welcomes representatives from Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center to Albany to discuss funding for community based health services and school-based health centers.

Senator Montgomery welcomed Community Health Centers to Albany to fight for funding for vital health services and school-based health centers. Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center joined the Community Health Care Association of NYS (CHCANYS) and 900 community health care supporters to meet with lawmakers to discuss New York’s health care safety net. 

CHCANYS represents the state’s network of non-profit, community-based comprehensive health care facilities, known as Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). They provide comprehensive health care regardless of a patient’s insurance status or ability to pay. Working out of 650 sites statewide, FQHCs serve two million New Yorkers annually – an increase of 35 percent since 2008. Some 86 percent of patients are near or below the poverty line.

CHCANYS top priority this year is a request for the state to increase funding for indigent care by $20 million – an increase will maintain 2016 funding levels and avoid undue financial harm to FQHCs and other safety net providers that serve high numbers of uninsured New Yorkers. Without these additional dollars, many FQHCs may be forced to reduce staff, eliminate expansion plans and/or limit access precisely at a time when it is anticipated the numbers of uninsured may increase statewide, unnecessarily increasing reliance on more costly forms of care. To learn more about the Community Health Care Association of NYS (CHCANYS) and their legislative agenda, visit http://www.chcanys.org

Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center, Inc. (BPMC) has provided comprehensive quality health care and support services to Fort Greene and North Central Brooklyn residents and surrounding communities for almost 40 years. Brooklyn Plaza operates three locations: Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center, Inc. (650 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York), Whitman Ingersoll Farragut Health Center “Public Housing Primary Care” (279 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York) and Benjamin Banneker Academy School-Based Health Center (77 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, New York). For more information, visit http://www.brooklynplaza.org/