Each year the OPA establishes program priorities that represent overarching goals for the Title X program. Program priorities derive from Healthy People 2020 Objectives and from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) priorities. Project plans should be developed that address the 2013 Title X program priorities, and should provide evidence of the project’s capacity to address program priorities as they evolve in future years. The 2013 program priorities are as follows:
Fiscal Year 2013 Program Priorities
- Assuring the delivery of quality family planning and related preventive health services, where evidence exists that those services should lead to improvement in the overall health of individuals, with priority for services to individuals from low-income families. This includes ensuring that grantees have the capacity to train staff throughout their Title X projects, and that project staff have received training on Title X program requirements;
- Expanding access to a broad range of acceptable and effective family planning methods and related preventive health services in accordance with Title X program requirements and nationally recognized standards of care. These services include, but are not limited to, natural family planning methods, infertility services, services for adolescents, breast and cervical cancer screening, and sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV prevention education, testing, and referral. The broad range of services does not include abortion as a method of family planning;
- Emphasizing the importance of discussing a reproductive life plan with all family planning clients, and providing preconception health services as a part of family planning services, as appropriate;
- Addressing the comprehensive family planning and other health needs of individuals, families, and communities through outreach to hard-to-reach and/or vulnerable populations, and partnering with other community-based health and social service providers that provide needed services; and;
- Identifying specific strategies for adapting delivery of family planning and reproductive health services to a changing health care environment including addressing provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This includes, but is not limited to, increasing the capacity of Title X service sites to utilize health information technologies that will enhance their ability to bill third party payers.
In addition to program priorities, the following key issues have implications for Title X services projects, and should be considered in developing the project plan:
- Efficiency and effectiveness in program management and operations;
- Patient access to a broad range of contraceptive options, including long acting reversible contraceptives (LARC), other pharmaceuticals, and laboratory tests;
- Management and decision-making through performance measures and accountability for outcomes;
- Linkages and partnerships with comprehensive primary care providers, HIV care and treatment providers, and mental health, drug and alcohol treatment providers;
- Incorporation of CDC’s “Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents and Pregnant Women in Health Care Settings;”
- Data collection (such as the Family Planning Annual Report (FPAR)) for use in monitoring performance and improving family planning services;
- Incorporation of research outcomes that focus on family planning service delivery;
- Encouragement of vaccination of patients and health care personnel to protect against influenza.
