The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has compiled and maintains a non-exhaustive list of available ECPs that serve primarily low-income and medically underserved populations. These providers initiated their inclusion on the ECP List by submitting an ECP petition to be added to the HHS ECP List and were approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) through the ECP petition review process. Types of providers that are eligible for possible inclusion on the HHS ECP List include the following:

• Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and FQHC look-alikes
• Dental clinics providing dental services to low-income consumers in low-income ZIP codes or Health Professional Shortage Areas
• Specific types of Inpatient Hospitals: Critical Access Hospitals, Rural Referral Centers, Disproportionate Share Hospitals Children’s Hospitals, Sole Community Hospitals, Free-standing Cancer Centers
• Indian health care providers (including inpatient hospital services), which include providers participating in programs operated by 1) the Indian Health Service; 2) a Tribe or Tribal organization under the authority of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act; and 3) an urban Indian organization under the authority of Title V of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act
• Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program providers
• Family planning providers receiving Federal funding under Title X of the PHS Act and not-for-profit or governmental family planning service sites that do not receive Federal funding under Title X of the PHS Act or other 340B-qualifying funding
• Other providers that serve predominantly low-income, medically underserved individuals, including Black Lung Clinics, Community Mental Health Centers, Hemophilia Treatment Centers, Rural Health Clinics, Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinics, Substance Use Disorder Treatment Centers, and Tuberculosis Clinics

The ECP List is updated monthly to include recently approved provider petitions. This ECP List can be viewed and downloaded by visiting the Rolling Draft ECP List page.

HHS updates the Rolling Draft ECP List monthly to assist Marketplace issuers with identifying providers that qualify as ECPs for inclusion in a Marketplace issuer's plan network toward satisfaction of the ECP standard under 45 CFR 156.235. The Final ECP List reflects the universe of ECPs at a particular snapshot in time. Under 45 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 156.235, the Secretary of HHS has established criteria for inclusion of a sufficient number and geographic distribution of ECPs, where available, in an issuer’s network to ensure reasonable and timely access to a broad range of such providers for low-income, medically underserved individuals in their service areas. To satisfy this ECP requirement, Marketplace issuers must submit provider data as part of their Qualified Health Plan (QHP) application, in which they must list the ECPs with whom they have contracted to provide health care services to low-income, medically underserved individuals in their service areas. If your facility is on the HHS ECP List, Marketplace issuers can contract with you to help them meet the ECP requirements to submit a successful application for QHP certification.

The ECP petition submission process remains open year-round so providers can submit and update their provider data at any time. Your petition will be reviewed for inclusion on the Rolling Draft ECP List within approximately one month of submission. This means that if your provider petition is approved, your facility will appear on the Rolling Draft ECP List within approximately one month, allowing a Marketplace issuer to receive credit toward satisfying QHP certification requirements by offering a contract to your facility for the upcoming plan year.

In accordance with section 1311(c)(1)(C) of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Qualified Health Plan (QHP) issuers, including Stand-alone Dental Plan (SADP) issuers, are required to include within their networks essential community providers (ECPs), where available. ECPs are providers that serve predominantly low-income, medically underserved individuals. Under this same section of the ACA, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is charged with establishing criteria for certification of health plans as QHPs. One of these criteria is the inclusion of ECPs in QHP and SADP issuers’ networks. Under 45 CFR 156.235, ECPs are defined as health care providers who serve predominantly low-income, medically underserved individuals. They include health care providers defined in section 340B(a) (4) of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act; entities described in section 1927(c)(1)(D)(IV) of the Social Security Act (SSA), including State-owned family planning service sites, governmental family planning service sites, not-for-profit family planning service sites that do not receive Federal funding under special programs, including under Title X of the PHS Act or other 340B- qualifying funding; or Indian health care providers, unless any of the above providers has lost its status under either of these sections, 340B of the PHS Act or 1927 of the SSA, as a result of violating Federal law.

The current HHS Rolling Draft Essential Community Provider (ECP) List for the Federally-facilitated Marketplace can be accessed here.

The cutoff for the Final ECP List occurs each year in mid-August. CMS will accept petitions until mid-August for data corrections and additions to be considered for the Final Plan Year ECP List. For example:

• For the Final Plan Year 2027 ECP List: CMS will accept petitions submissions from qualified providers from August 15, 2024 until mid-August 2025.
• For the Final Plan Year 2026 ECP List: CMS considered petitions from qualified providers between August 17, 2023 until 11:59 p.m. ET on August 14, 2024.
• For the Final Plan Year 2025 ECP List: CMS considered petitions from qualified providers between August 18, 2022, through August 16, 2023.

Petitions approved by CMS appear on the Rolling Draft ECP List within a few weeks after a provider’s submission for previewing by both providers and issuers prior to inclusion on the upcoming final plan year’s ECP List.

No. Submitting an ECP petition through this site or appearing on the HHS ECP List will not impact any grants or funding your facility may receive. If your facility is on the HHS ECP List, Marketplace issuers can offer to contract with you to help them meet the ECP requirements to submit a successful application for QHP certification. Appearing on the HHS ECP List will not otherwise affect your facility.