Sunrise Clinic briefs oversight committee on school-based services and warns Medicaid cutbacks could reduce revenue

Dr. Brown, a presenter for Sunrise Clinic, told the New Mexico Finance Authority Oversight Committee that the clinic operates school-based health services across Northeast New Mexico and provides primary care, behavioral health and social-support screening for students. "We provide primary care, behavioral health care, and then psychosocial or community needs. Right? Family needs, housing, food insecurity," Dr. Brown said.

The presenter said the clinic screens students for medical and psychosocial problems, refers families for food and housing assistance and enrolls eligible patients in Medicaid to facilitate transportation and specialty referrals. Dr. Brown described a network of regional referral specialists who match patients to available providers, noting that referral destinations depend on geography and insurance coverage.

Committee members pressed for details about patient volumes and clinic locations. Representative Cates said the committee had been told about roughly 10,000 visits associated with the school‑based program and asked whether those visits were in Tucumcari; Dr. Brown said the visits were "throughout Northeast New Mexico." The transcript contains inconsistent counts about the number of clinics cited during that exchange; the presenter referred to multiple clinics and also made overlapping numeric statements during the Q&A.

Members asked about recruitment and retention of medical providers. Dr. Brown credited a program that precepts University of New Mexico family medicine residents in Santa Rosa for one month, saying those residents often "fall in love with being able to practice rural medicine." She said employers sometimes pay higher salaries to compete with Albuquerque and Texas markets, and that lifestyle scheduling (for example, clinicians working a week on/week off) helps recruit staff. She also identified malpractice insurance and limits on graduate medical education funding as long‑standing barriers to expanding residency slots.

On financing and workforce questions, Representative Kates and others described legislative ideas under consideration, including housing incentives and administrative assistance for clinicians moving to New Mexico, and urged expansion of residency positions at UNM. Dr. Brown said UNM residency slots are constrained by graduate medical education funding and Medicare rules; she also noted that Sunrise Clinic pays resident salaries when residents train at rural sites because some graduate medical education funds do not pay residents away from the parent institution.

Dr. Brown warned of an operational impact from recent Medicaid eligibility changes signed into law. "Because of the Medicaid cutbacks that are currently been signed into law, we anticipate that, about 20 percent of our patients will lose Medicaid coverage and they would then fall into the category of either no charge or $10, per visit," she said, adding the projected revenue shortfall for the clinic is in the "neighborhood of $400,000." Committee members discussed telehealth, behavioral‑health needs after disasters and the role of school‑based clinics in reducing absenteeism.

Committee members and the presenter discussed various logistical supports — housing for residents on rural rotations, supervisory hours for social workers, and transportation challenges in remote areas. Dr. Brown said Sunrise Clinic employs staff to assist Medicaid enrollment and regional referrals, and that transportation remains a major barrier to specialty care access in parts of Northeast New Mexico.

The committee thanked the presenter and moved on to water issues. The committee did not take any formal votes related to Sunrise Clinic policy during the session recorded in the transcript.