Hello,
I'm the medical director for Sweetser, a behavioral health organization in Maine that was just awarded a grant to develop a Certified Community Behavioral Health Center.
For the purposes of improving staff recruitment and retention, we are interested in applying to become a National Health Service Corp site so eligible staff could apply for loan forgiveness. Currently in Maine, all Federally Qualified Health Centers, regardless of if they are located in HRSA designated health shortage areas or not, do get approved as National Health Service Corp sites. At Sweetser, our Certified Community Behavioral Health Center will not be located in a HRSA designated rural health shortage area but similar to non rural FQHC's in Maine, we will be providing care to a population that are significantly underserved.
There has never been a Certified Community Behavioral Health Center before in Maine and therefore our state HRSA representative will not yet likely be familiar with CCBHC's.
It could bolster our application if I could reference any CCBHC's from other states, operating in non HRSA designated health shortage areas who have been designated as NHCC sites, by virtue of being a CCBHC. Please kindly reply to this post or to my personal email address if you represent such a CCBHC.
Sincerely,
Marc I Kaplan DO.
Sweetser Medical Director
mkaplan@sweetser.org------------------------------
Marc Kaplan
Medical Director
Sweetser
Saco ME
207-522-9655
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