National Health Center Week 2024: Building Stronger, Healthier Communities

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

South Dakota’s Community Health Centers, like Horizon Health, deliver affordable, accessible care to their patients – who are also their family, friends and neighbors.

At Horizon Health, we know the values that make our communities, and our way of life, unique. For over 45 years, Horizon has been “Caring for our way of life” and in April 2024, we adopted that as part of our branding.

Rural healthcare doesn’t mean lower quality care. At Horizon, a patient receives the same level of treatment he or she would get at a larger healthcare system without driving hours to access that care. Our providers are technically astute and robustly trained in the latest healthcare treatment methods. If a patient’s health requires the attention of a specialist, our providers will partner with and refer them to the most appropriate next level of care.

In 2023, Horizon Health providers cared for over 27,000 patients including 8,300 children. In doing so it generated $68 million in economic activity and 254 full-time jobs.

Horizon’s footprint spreads throughout the state to 22 communities and 31 clinics including eight dental locations in some of the most rural and frontier locations in South Dakota. We also serve residents in larger communities who face the concerns of untreated chronic care conditions brought on by a lack of insurance. Horizon employs Community Health Workers to align individuals with resources so that they can solve medical, dental or behavioral health concerns that have negatively impacted their quality of life in some cases for decades.

Our patients can access behavioral health via telehealth technology at all our Community Health Centers. Our access to telehealth for our medical and dental patients allows you to be seen whether a provider is available within your local community or not.

The Community Health Center movement that began in the tempestuous 1960s, has now grown to provide a healthcare lifeline to over 31.5 million patients per year nationwide, saving taxpayers $24 billion in healthcare costs.

In order to protect your local Community Health Center, you have come to rely on to care for your children, your parents, your friends, your neighbors and yourself, Congress must pass long-term mandatory funding for health centers and legislation protecting the 340B prescription drug discount program. We’d like to thank Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds, and Representative Dusty Johnson for their support of their hometown healthcare clinics and the people who rely on them to stay well.

As part of National Health Center Week 2024 (August 4-10), we invite you to support a health center in your neighborhood and celebrate its mission and accomplishments.

Wade Erickson

CEO

Horizon Health