Maryland offers $25 million to community health centers to keep treating patients who lose coverage
Gov. Wes Moore announced the Uncompensated Care Grants on Oct. 20. The Maryland Health Care Commission will pay federally qualified health centers, and local health departments where no center operates, for primary care of uninsured patients in 2027.
Annapolis. Maryland will spend $25 million over one year to pay community health clinics for the primary care of people who lose their health insurance, Gov. Wes Moore announced on Oct. 20 in remarks at the ninth annual Bloomberg American Health Initiative Summit.
The money goes out as Uncompensated Care Grants, administered by the Maryland Health Care Commission. Eligible applicants are federally qualified health centers, the nonprofit clinics that see patients whatever their ability to pay, and local health departments in parts of the state that no such center serves.
The governor's office said the grants respond to H.R. 1, the federal law signed in July 2025, whose changes to Medicaid are expected to increase the number of uninsured Marylanders. The grants are meant to give people who lose coverage a routine source of primary care, including acute visits, chronic disease management and behavioral health services, so that less of their care ends up as uncompensated care in hospital emergency departments.
How the money would flow
A draft plan the commission published in August, as described by The Southern Maryland Chronicle, would pay each grantee a set monthly amount for every eligible uninsured patient it sees, less anything the patient pays that month. The draft sets the grant period as calendar year 2027, with payments starting in January, and had not yet fixed the monthly rate.
Under the draft, a patient qualifies when no other source of payment covers the care and the patient is at risk of an emergency room visit, shown by two or more chronic conditions, an acute condition or a chronic condition that is not under control. Grantees would report each month on the patients they see and the care they give.
The Chronicle reports that the money comes from a one-time shift of hospital rate dollars into community care, approved by the state's Health Services Cost Review Commission at its July 22 meeting.
What comes next
The governor's release links to a request for applications posted by the commission, but it gives no application deadline, and no clinic or health department has been named as a recipient. Health centers and local health departments that want to apply should look for the request on the commission's website.
The state also said its premium assistance program for residents who buy coverage through Maryland Health Connection, with household incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level, will continue in 2027 at the same level as in 2026.
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