California’s Federally Qualified Health Centers experienced many financial challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are a critical provider of health care, particularly for communities of color and Medicaid beneficiaries. It is vital that health centers are financially and operationally stable so they can continue to effectively provide patients with primary care, behavioral health, and dental services.

Since the fall of 2019, Aurrera Health Group has been working closely with the Office of the California Surgeon General (CA-OSG) and the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to launch the ACEs Aware initiative – a first-in-the-nation, statewide effort to promote screening for early detection of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and mitigate against the health and societal impacts of ACEs and toxic stress.

Prepared for the California Health Care Foundation by Aurrera Health Group and Capital Link, this paper identifies several key factors that enabled California’s health centers to manage the financial strain exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic while continuing to serve patients at a time when accessing health care involved new and unanticipated challenges.

Prepared for the DHCS and CDSS CalAIM Workgroup, this report explores ways to better integrate services, provide a single contact for children, and ensure access to specialty care in the child welfare system.

The enhanced care management benefit (ECM) and in lieu of services (ILOS) proposed under the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) proposal build upon the successes of California’s 25 Whole Person Care (WPC) pilots.

Launched in 2015, the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System (DMC-ODS) is nation’s first Medicaid Section 1115 waiver to expand access to substance use disorder (SUD) treatment services.