McLeod Health Foundation Receives $1,035,000 in Grants from The Duke Endowment

The McLeod Health Foundation has received two grants from The Duke Endowment totaling $1,035,000 over the next two years.

The first grant for $500,000 supports AccessHealth McLeod. Launched at McLeod in 2014, AccessHealth provides navigation services to uninsured patients with chronic illnesses across 11 counties. This proven model deploys community health workers to connect patients with the preventive care, specialty care, and community resources they need to manage their conditions proactively rather than relying on emergency-only care.

The second grant for $535,000 will support the McLeod Medication Access Team. Established in 2025, the Medication Access Team helps McLeod Clinics manage prior authorization insurance requirements related to medications. This unique model offloads complex and burdensome workloads for clinic staff, freeing them up to spend more time providing face-to-face care to patients. The Medication Access Team's work also helps patients start treatments faster, supports long-term adherence to medication plans, and helps low-income patients and those with high deductibles afford costly prescriptions through available assistance programs. Grant funding will help the team expand from serving 24 McLeod Health Clinics to 64 over the next two years.

“We are so grateful for The Duke Endowment’s trust and continued support of our initiatives at McLeod Health,” says Elizabeth Jones, executive director of the McLeod Health Foundation. “These grants are a credit to everyone at McLeod, where we strive to improve and innovate our care delivery to serve all patients in the region.”

“The Duke Endowment is proud to support this work,” said Lin Hollowell, director of Health Care at The Duke Endowment. “Both programs reflect innovative approaches to enhancing access to care, which is critical in reducing health disparities and improving health outcomes for people in the communities that McLeod Health serves.”