California Community Health Centers’ Journey Through the Pandemic

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, California community health centers (CHCs) quickly adapted care models and operations, repurposing staff, providing outreach, leveraging telehealth modalities, and remaining open for emergencies. COVID-19 reinforced that FQHCs are nimble and can reach patients in creative ways. However, as face-to-face visits (the primary mechanism for FQHC reimbursement) declined during the pandemic, health centers entered a particularly challenging time.The combination of federal relief funding paired with temporary Medicaid policy changes, such as allowing for expanded reimbursement for telehealth services, provided a lifeline that helped CHCs remain afloat. However, federal relief and temporary policy changes are more of a stopgap measure than a solution for longer-term financial sustainability. In the coming months and years, it will be important to monitor the financial health of FQHCs and the safety-net health care system as the pandemic winds down but may not be fully resolved.In a report prepared with support from the California Health Care Foundation, entitled Risky Business: California Health Centers Weakened by the COVID-19 Pandemic Prepare for the Future, Lauren Block and Carol Backstrom from Aurrera Health Group’s Medicaid Policy and Programs team discuss how COVID-19 magnified issues related to health disparities and access to care, as well as the policy and reimbursement considerations that could strengthen the FQHC model, and in turn ensure access to high-quality, team-driven care for low-income Californians.This report is the third in a series designed to provide a window into the financial and operational impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on California’s FQHCs. The first report, California FQHC Financial and Operational Performance Analysis, released in November 2020, provided an aggregated financial and operational profile of California FQHCs, covering the period between 2016-2019, and illustrated some of the drivers of declining financial performance prior to the onset of the pandemic. The second report, Holding On: How California’s Health Centers Adapted Operations and Care for Patients During the Pandemic, released in February of 2021, analyzed the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on California’s health centers during the period of March through December 2020.All related reports for this project can be found here.

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Authors

Lauren Block [Vice President]