
Community paramedicine is one area in healthcare and social services that is getting more attention lately. Keeping people out of hospitals as much as possible is key to...
There is widespread recognition in the United States that the nation needs to invest more in strategies to address the social determinants of health as a way to bring down the costs of healthcare and improve health and social outcomes, especially for underserved populations.
As healthcare systems take steps to address social needs, community-based organizations (CBOs) are key partners. Across the country, CBOs have long provided social services and care to people of all ages and their families to address community resource needs, promote health and behavior change, improve functional ability, and reduce social isolation.
This article begins with basic explanations of how CBOs operate, then reviews the primary ways healthcare and CBOs partner to deliver services to Medicaid populations.
Community-based organizations (CBOs) are nonprofit groups that work at the local level to improve life for people in need. CBOs can help people pay bills or find food, jobs, or places to live. CBOs can also help people with basic healthcare needs. In all these ways, CBOs perform a vital function in the American health and human services ecosystem, and account for nearly $200 billion in economic activity throughout the US, according to the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities.
CBO programs typically operate on razor-thin profit margins and are supported by a patchwork of grants, donations, and government contracts that rarely cover actual program costs, and often operate on a short-term basis. This lack of sustainable funding negatively impacts the ability of CBOs to grow, improve, and scale their services in the community. This is an upstream barrier making CBOs unable to invest in infrastructure and attract the support of healthcare payers and partners who require scale to comfortably contract out their services.
To meet the needs of their communities, state Medicaid models vary significantly in their design of policies to address health-related social needs and, by extension, social determinants of health. Here are the most common provider/payer arrangements that states use in Medicaid policy to align incentives for healthcare providers and CBOs:
Community paramedicine is one area in healthcare and social services that is getting more attention lately. Keeping people out of hospitals as much as possible is key to...
I recently had the pleasure of hosting a teleconference with the Scottsdale Institute and Activate Care customer Queen of the Valley Hospital in Northern California. The...