Special Report: The Deteriorating Financial Health of New York State’s Health Centers

Financial distress among health centers is grave and growing, according to initial findings unveiled in this NYHealth-produced issue brief by the Primary Care Development Corporation.

Part of a larger study on the financial stability of the State’s health centers, “The Deteriorating Financial Health of New York State’s Health Centers,” found health centers struggling on key financial indicators, including:

• 43% of freestanding health centers lost money in all or most of the last seven years.
• Health center margins have fallen dramatically, from 2.28% in 2001 to 0.56% in 2007.
• With only 16.5 days of cash on hand, down from 22 days in 2002, health centers are one payroll away from full scale financial crisis. Health centers are systematically underpaid for their services:
• Actual costs per visit exceed Medicaid fee-for-service rate by nearly 20%. In recent years the State has partially closed the gap with special payments.
• Private payers pay $38–$55 less per visit than does Medicaid fee-for-service.
• The State pays health centers less than 30% of the cost for care for the uninsured.