HHS awards $45M to support long COVID care

Key takeaways:

• A total of nine HHS grants are worth $1 million each for up to 5 years.
• The grants will be used to implement care coordination, increase long COVID care access and integrate behavioral health staff.

HHS, through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, has awarded $45 million in grants to support multidisciplinary long COVID clinics and expand coordinated and comprehensive care.

“The long COVID clinics receiving these grants offer a comprehensive range of medical services to evaluate and treat patients’ physical, behavioral, functional needs, while also assessing their social needs and context,” the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Chief Medical Officer Laura Sessums, JD, MD, told Healio. “As per the grant requirements, AHRQ will have the opportunity to oversee, evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of specific long COVID clinic services and models of care.”

According to HHS, the nine grants are worth $1 million each for up to 5 years.

“These grants support the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole-government effort to move the needle on evidence-based research and improve health care services for those suffering from long COVID,” Sessums said.

Recent research has found that long COVID symptoms can persist for as long as 2 years after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, and although the prevalence of long COVID has declined, many patients still report persistent symptoms.

The grants are intended to create new delivery models, expand multidisciplinary networks and person-centered care coordination by:

• implementing dedicated care coordination, social services and language interpretive staff for patients with long COVID;
• increasing access to long COVID care by expanding in-person and virtual visit capacity and establishing new satellite clinics; and
• integrating behavioral health staff and behavioral health and rehabilitation group support programs.

One of the grantees was the Pitt IMProving Access to Culturally relevant long COVID care and Treatment (IMPACCT) Program. Alison M. Morris, MD, MS, a professor of medicine, immunology, and clinical and translational research, Frank Sciurba, MD, a professor of medicine and education, and Howard Degenholtz, PhD, a professor of health policy and management — all at the University of Pittsburgh — are involved in the program.

“We are thrilled to receive this grant, as we see it as a way to help many people suffering with long COVID,” Morris told Healio. “Given the number of people who currently have long COVID or who may be diagnosed in the future, it is important to increase recognition and understanding of the condition.”

According to Morris, they plan to use the grant in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Family Medicine and the Black Equity Coalition “to increase recognition of long COVID and provide patient and provider education around long COVID.”

“We are working specifically with populations who may have less access to health care,” she said. “Our program will also help patients who need specialty referrals to our post-COVID clinic.”

References:

• HHS awards $45 Million in grants to expand access to care for people with long COVID. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/09/20/hhs-awards-45-million-grants-expand-access-care-people-long-covid.html. Published Sept. 20, 2023. Accessed Sept. 22, 2023.
• Long COVID grant awards. https://www.ahrq.gov/coronavirus/long-covid-grant-awards.html. Accessed Sept. 22, 2023.