A Quarterly Resource Bulletin from Capital Link Fall 2018
Message from the CEO
Capital Link staff are enjoying seeing many of you at the numerous events we’re participating in this fall. It’s inspiring to learn more about the incredible work health centers are doing to create healthy communities, from implementing team-based care to integrating services.
It was a busy summer for Capital Link, having recently released several new publications on a variety of important topics, including how to calculate your cost of care. We also just completed a study conducted in collaboration with the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved (ACU). Access these resources on Capital Link’s website, and also on the new Health Center Resource Clearinghouse.
We also encourage all health centers to provide input through the National Health Center Training and Technical Assistance Needs Assessment, a collaborative effort of all HRSA-funded National Cooperative Agreement (NCA) organizations. Your responses will help us best support health center operational needs.
Capital Link continues to grow, and we would like to update you on a few staffing additions here at Capital Link and our lending affiliate, Community Health Center Capital Fund. Jennifer Saber joined Capital Link in 2018 as Director of Data and Analysis. We’d also like to welcome Duncan McGillivray, Olivia Dear, and Adrienne Cooksey to the Advisory Services team. In addition, Sally Zhao was hired at Capital Link as a Staff Accountant, and Jake Coppola joined Capital Fund as a Lending Assistant. We’re delighted to have them aboard.
As always, this latest issue of Capital Ink also offers a federal update, health center highlights, and a complete list of our upcoming trainings and webinars. We hope you find it helpful.
Warm Regards,
Allison Coleman, CEO
Federal Update
Below is a selection of recent health policy and regulatory news and information relevant to health centers and PCAs. For regular updates, subscribe to Capital Link’s blog, or access NACHC’s blogs and the HRSA’s health center webpage.
Health Center Funding Included in FY19 Spending Bill
September 28, 2018 – President Trump signed the appropriations legislation for Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 into law keeping the government open through December 7, 2018. The comprehensive bill provides $1.63 billion for health centers. At least $200 million will go toward quality improvement and substance use services, and $105 million will go to the National Health Service Corps to expand the health center workforce in FY19. Learn more here.
U.S. Treasury Awards $202.2 Million to Support Economic Growth in Low-Income Communities
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September 19, 2018 – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund announced the awardees of the FY 2018 CDFI Program round. The CDFI Fund awarded $165 million in Financial Assistance and Technical Assistance to 264 organizations in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Learn more about the CDFI program and the awards here. Capital Link’s affiliate, Community Health Center Capital Fund (Capital Fund) received a Financial Assistance award from the CDFI Fund totaling $875,000, which will enable them to increase lending for health centers seeking to finance facilities and operational growth. Learn more here. |
HRSA Awards ~$400 Million to Combat Opioid Crisis
September 19, 2018 – HRSA announced nearly $400 million in awards to health centers, academic institutions, and rural organizations to combat the opioid crisis in communities across the U.S. Health Center Program investments include:
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Expanding Access to Quality Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health Services (SUD-MH) awards: $352 million in funding will expand access to substance use disorder and mental health services at 1,232 community health centers across the nation. SUD-MH will expand access to integrated services by increasing personnel and enhancing infrastructure. Learn more about SUD-MH awards here.
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Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) and Enhancing Behavioral Health Workforce (EBHW) awards: $18 million in funding supports partnerships between 21 academic institutions and 54 HRSA-funded health centers. Together, these award recipients will increase the number of professionals and paraprofessionals who are trained to deliver integrated behavioral health and primary care services as part of health care teams in HRSA-supported health centers.
For more information on these awards, click here.
HRSA Awards $60 Million to Health Centers Impacted by Hurricanes
September 6, 2018 – HRSA awarded nearly $60 million to 161 health centers in six southern states and two U.S. territories that were impacted by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Capital Assistance for Hurricane Response and Recovery Efforts (CARE) funding will help ensure continued access to primary health care services at community health centers in areas affected by the hurricanes. Visit HRSA's website for more information and a complete list of the award recipients.
HRSA Awards $21 Million for Health Center Participation in NIH’s All of Us Program
September 11, 2018 – HRSA awarded $21 million to 46 health centers to support their participation in NIH’s All of Us Research Program, an effort to advance individualized prevention, treatment, and care for people of all backgrounds. NIH and its more than 100 partners are calling upon one million or more people from every walk of life to share their health information for at least a decade through surveys, biological specimens, electronic health record data, and, in some cases, wearable devices. Visit HRSA’s website for a complete list of the award recipients.
Celebrating Health Center Quality Improvement
August 15, 2018 - HRSA announced $125 million in Quality Improvement Awards (QIAs) to 1,352 US health centers across recognizing the highest performing health centers nationwide as well as those health centers that have made significant quality improvement gains from the previous year. Health centers will use these funds to build upon their 2017 achievements to continue to improve quality, efficiency, and the value of health care delivery in the communities they serve. Learn more here.
New and Noteworthy
Managing Your Health Center’s Cost of Care
As the health center industry transforms, health center success requires an even greater focus on cost management, including learning how to calculate cost of care and identifying opportunities to reduce costs while maintaining high quality. To help health centers better understand the factors that influence the cost of care, Capital Link recently released some new publications and is offering webinar and in-person trainings.
The new publications, described under Resources, include a Capital Link study examining four-year trends across a series of cost-focused ratios and an updated NACHC issue brief providing a methodology for calculating costs. We also recently delivered a webinar providing an overview of information from these resources. The recording and slides are available here.
We’re also presenting Understanding Your Cost of Care: An Introduction to New Resources for Community Health Centers at the NACHC FOM/IT conference in Las Vegas, NV on October 16, 2018.
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In addition to these valuable resources, Capital Link has developed the Cost Comparison Snapshot, a new report from our proprietary database of UDS information and health center financial audits. The Snapshot provides health centers with multi-year trends on medical cost of care metrics. It illustrates how your health center’s specific costs compare to peer groups, highlighting areas for further examination to support performance improvement. View a sample report here.
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Open for Your Input! National Health Center Training and Technical Assistance Needs Assessment
HRSA has requested the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), a HRSA-funded National Cooperative Agreement (NCA), to conduct a national health center needs assessment in collaboration with the other 19 HRSA-funded NCA organizations, including Capital Link.
Health center responses to this consolidated needs assessment will inform the NCAs’ development, planning, dissemination, and evaluation of future operational training and technical assistance to best support health center operational needs. The survey is available here and we encourage all health center staff members to complete it. For more information, please contact KaRon Campbell at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The Health Center Resource Clearinghouse is Now Live!
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This comprehensive website provides easy access to a broad framework of resources, tools, and information developed by the National Cooperative Agreement (NCA) organizations, and additional partners soon! Check it out at www.healthcenterinfo.org. |
Resources
New Health Center Cost of Care Resources
Capital Link recently developed two new resources to assist health centers in measuring their cost of care. These publications were supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration.
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Cost of Care Trends for Community Health Centers provides median health center cost trends for all services using national data from Uniform Data System (UDS) from 2012 to 2016, providing general comparative data for benchmarking. The report further breaks down the data by separately analyzing the direct staff and related costs, and the allocation of facility and non-clinical support costs (overhead) for each service. Download this report here. |
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Developed by Capital Link and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) as an update to NACHC’s original 2003 publication, Cost per Visit: Measuring Health Center Performance reviews in detail the process and methodology to help health centers calculate the component costs of care with a focus on cost per visit across all service lines — medical, dental, mental health (including substance abuse), and vision services. Access the resource here. |
Identifying the Workforce and Financial Characteristics of High-Performing Health Centers
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Developed by Capital Link and the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved, this report examines the financial and workforce characteristics for the nation’s highest performing Federally Qualified Health Centers. Prepared with support from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Download this report here. |
2017 UDS Health Center Data Now Available
Health Center Program national-level grantee data for 2017 is now available on the Uniform Data System (UDS) website. Data shows that nearly all health centers demonstrated improvement on one or more clinical quality measures. Other highlights include:
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Close to 90% of health centers provided mental health services to over 2 million patients
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Approximately 65,000 health center patients received medication-assisted treatment services—a 75% increase over 2016
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67% of diabetic health center patients controlled their blood sugar level (HbA1c ˂ 9%), exceeding the national average of 57%
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63% of hypertensive health center patients controlled their blood pressure, exceeding the national average of 57%
Visit the UDS website here.
Case Study on Integrating Housing and Health Care
The National Health Care for the Homeless Council recently released Housing Is Health Care: A Case Study of Housing Development at an HCH Program Policy Brief. The brief focuses on how the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and Renaissance Housing Development Corporation have successfully integrated site-based housing development and property management with health care and integrated supportive services for the homeless population in Denver, CO. Access the policy brief here.
Interested in co-locating health and housing facilities? Explore joining the Health and Housing Capital Expansion Learning Collaborative, facilitated by Capital Link and CSH! We’re hosting an introductory webinar on October 24, 2018. See Learning Collaboratives for more information.
Recently Updated HRSA Health Center Program Resources
Health Center Highlights
Capital Link regularly profiles health centers that have successfully completed their expansion plans. These health center stories are available on our website. The latest addition is Katy Trail Community Health, MO, coming soon!
Esperanza Health Center closed financing for a $20 million project in northern Philadelphia, PA, which will support the renovation and expansion of a new health center and community center. With construction expected to be completed in August 2019, the new 35,000-square-foot facility will house a combination of medical, dental, and mental health services and allow for better integration of health and wellness programs. Financing was achieved through a New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) transaction, with NMTC allocation provided by Capital Link’s lending affiliate, Community Health Center Capital Fund, and PIDC Community Capital. Learn more here.
Descriptions of other recent Capital Fund closings can be found here:
Upcoming Events
Presentations
Capital Link regularly attends industry conferences to exhibit, conduct trainings, and present information related to capital development to health centers and primary care associations. Below are a few of our next scheduled events. All upcoming events are listed here on our website.
Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers
October 9-11, 2018
Lancaster, PA
Building Strategic and Operational Agility and Communicating Value Through Scenario Modeling and Market Assessment
Presenter: Jonathan Chapman, Director of Community Health Center Advisory Services, Capital Link
Louisiana Primary Care Association Annual Conference
October 9-12, 2018
Shreveport, LA
Managing the Health Center Revenue Cycle
Wednesday October 10, 2018 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Presenter: Olivia Dear, Project Consultant, Capital Link
NACHC FOM/IT
October 16-17, 2018
Las Vegas, NV
Understanding Your Cost of Care: An Introduction to New Resources for Community Health Centers
Tuesday, October 16, 2018 11 am-12:30 pm
Presenter: Susan Petrie, Chief Operations Officer, Capital Link
Building Strategic and Operational Agility Through Scenario Modeling and Market Assessment Tools
Wednesday October 17, 2018 1:30-3:00 pm
Presenter: Jonathan Chapman, Director of Community Health Center Advisory Services, Capital Link
Georgia Primary Care Association Annual Conference
October 17-19, 2018
Jekyll Island, GA
Capital Project Planning and Financing Sources
Friday, October 19, 2018 9:05 – 10:30 am
Presenters: Allison Coleman, Chief Executive Officer, Capital Link and Brandon Boyle, Director of Loan Programs, Community Health Center Capital Fund
Missouri Primary Care Association Annual Conference
October 25-26, 2018
Branson, MO
NACHC's 2018 PCA & HCCN Conference
November 14-16, 2018
New Orleans, LA
Advancing the Financial Strength of Health Centers
Thursday, November 15, 2018 4-5:30 pm
Presenters: Louise McCarthy, President and CEO of CCALAC and Susan Petrie, COO of Capital Link
Learning Collaboratives
Health and Housing Capital Expansion Learning Collaborative
Join an introductory webinar for the upcoming Capital Expansion for Health and Housing Partnerships Learning Collaborative. This is an opportunity for you to connect with a peer group of health centers to exchange expertise and challenges focused on capital development expansion for housing and health providers. Corporation for Supportive Housing and Capital Link, both HRSA-funded NCAs, will facilitate a series of discussions and share resources exploring the benefits and planning for co-locating health and housing facilities, relationship-building with housing providers, assessing market needs, leveraging resources, and more. Participants will meet monthly from December 2018 to April 2019.
Introduction to Capital Expansion for Health and Housing Partnerships
Wednesday, October 24, 2018, 2-3 p.m. ET
Webinars
Capital Link offers webinars designed to offer useful information for health centers on a wide range of topics. The webinars have no charge, but participation is limited. Access complete descriptions of the webinars here and recordings of past webinars here.
Financial and Operational Benchmarking Trends and Techniques
Wednesday, October 31, 2018 2-3 p.m. ET
Presented by Susan Petrie, Chief Operating Officer, Capital Link