HHS Awards $45 Million in Grants to Expand Access to Care for People with Long COVID

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), has announced nine grant awards of $1 million each for up to five years to support existing multidisciplinary Long COVID clinics across the country to expand access to comprehensive, coordinated and person-centered care for people with Long COVID, particularly underserved, rural, vulnerable and minority populations that are disproportionately impacted by the effects of Long COVID. The grants are designed to expand access and care, develop and implement new or improved care delivery models, foster best practices for Long COVID management and support the primary care community in Long COVID education.

The AHRQ-funded Long COVID clinics will focus on increasing access to care, improving person-centered care coordination, expanding multidisciplinary networks and behavioral health support, and expanding social support services for adult, pediatric and priority populations through strategies such as:

• Increasing Long COVID care access by expanding in-person and virtual visit capacity, establishing new satellite clinics and growing provider-based referrals through a coordinated education series;
• Adding dedicated care coordination, social services, language interpretive staff and group programs for people with Long COVID; and
• Integrating dedicated behavioral health staff and implementing behavioral health and rehabilitation group support programs.

“These nine grants have strong potential to serve as a roadmap for developing improved care models for primary care and specialty clinics serving populations disproportionately impacted by the effects of Long COVID,” said AHRQ Director Robert Otto Valdez, PhD, MHSA. “We look forward to sharing actionable knowledge from AHRQ grantees with other healthcare providers to support high-quality care for vulnerable patients with Long COVID.”