A partnership of equals: early lessons from mergers of similarly sized and positioned health centers
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue brief (California HealthCare Foundation)
- Author(s):
- Gomez, Rafael, (Of El Cambio Consulting), author
- Contributor(s):
- California HealthCare Foundation, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [Oakland, CA] : California Health Care Foundation, March 2023
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Community Health Centers Health Facility Merger California
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- California’s Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are responding to several important policy changes and reforms aimed at improving health care for the state’s diverse communities. These reforms include expanding Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented Californians, initiating and implementing CalAIM (California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal), expanding telehealth options, revising Medi-Cal quality standards, and adopting the FQHC Alternative Payment Methodology (APM), among others. FQHCs are being asked to develop new capabilities and to expand existing ones while continuing to struggle with historical limitations around workforce and organizational infrastructure. Well-executed mergers between healthy and stable FQHC partners may offer a path to achieve the organizational infrastructure, scale, and reach required to meet these demands and provide high-quality, culturally responsive care to all patients. However, it is often thought that mergers of FQHCs are driven by necessity and power imbalance. A perpetually struggling or financially at-risk health center turns to a larger and more stable FQHC partner for acquisition to ensure continuity of services and stability for staff. While historically this may have been true, California is increasingly seeing examples of similarly sized and positioned health centers exploring mergers. Driven by a desire to gain scale and capability, generational leadership transitions, and other factors, these “mergers of equals” present unique opportunities and challenges for partnering FQHCs. While it remains to be seen the extent to which such mergers can deliver on the above promise, recent efforts illustrate some early lessons for other health centers exploring merger. This issue brief explores the experiences of and reflections upon two recent mergers of similarly sized FQHCs in California in the last two years. Included are case study discussions of the motivations, agreements, and early experiences of each merger effort.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (8 pages)).
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918645976206676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918645976206676