Under the Federally Supported Health Centers Assistance Acts of 1992 and 1995, 1 health centers that receive funds through the Health Center Program 2 may be deemed as employees of the Public Health Service (PHS) for purposes of Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) coverage for the performance of medical, surgical, dental, and related functions within the scope of employment. The Health Center FTCA Program increases the availability of funds to health centers to provide services within the Health Center Program scope of project by reducing or eliminating health centers spending on malpractice insurance premiums for such services. The FTCA Deemed Health Center Search Tool searches a listing of recipients of Health Center Program grant funding that have been deemed as PHS employees.
Data as of 09/18/2024This search tool provides general information and is only one of many potential sources of information regarding an individual entity’s deemed status. You should not rely solely upon this search tool to ascertain whether an entity has been deemed as an employee of the Public Health Service for purposes of civil liability protections under the Federally Supported Health Centers Assistance Act (FSHCAA), 42 U.S.C. § 233(g)-(n), and the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The most important resource for information about a specific health center’s deemed Public Health Service employment status is the health center. For information about an entity’s deemed status, you are strongly encouraged to contact the health center directly. Please also note that this search tool will only provide search results for deemed health centers in the name of the entity as set forth in the deeming application. Health centers that are not deemed entities under the Health Center FTCA Program will not appear in the search results. Similarly, Look-Alike health centers will not appear in the search results because they do not receive grant funding and are therefore not eligible for deeming. Names that do not precisely conform with the name set forth in the deeming application also will also not appear in the search results. In addition, health center service sites may not bear the name of the grant recipient/deeming applicant. Therefore, even if an individual search does not retrieve the name of a specific deemed health center, this does not necessarily mean that care provided by the health center is not within the scope of deeming under FSHCAA. In the event of any inconsistency with the results yielded by this search tool, the pertinent Notice of Deeming Action (NDA) for the entity reflects the actual HRSA deeming determination under FSHCAA. Please also note that a deeming determination does not confer FTCA coverage for any particular claim or lawsuit. FTCA coverage determinations for a given activity are fact-specific and generally apply to a deemed health center’s grant-supported services provided to the health center’s patients or squarely within the examples of 42 CFR 6.6(e) by an eligible health center provider. For more information regarding a health center’s deemed status, as noted above, you are strongly encouraged to contact the health center. Alternatively, you may contact HRSA/BPHC at https://bphccommunications.secure.force.com/ContactBPHC/BPHC_Contact_Form.
Footnotes:
1 Section 224(g)-(n) of the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. 233(g)-(n)
2 See section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 254b)