HEALTH CENTER IMPACT ANALYSIS

The following Health Center Impact Analysis (HCIA) report was developed in collaboration between Community Link Consulting and the Washington Association for Community Health. Below the sample of the analysis info-graphic is a list of sources and a teaching guide, to introduce this presentation to local legislators and community stakeholders interested in better understanding the economic and personal impact of Washington’s network of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).

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HCIA SOURCES

ECONOMIC IMPACT

  • Total Economic Impact captures direct, indirect, and induced impacts of health center spending, community spending, and tax revenues.

    •  Direct impacts result from internal health center expenditures, such as operations, facilities, and hiring.

    • Indirect impacts result from purchasing of local goods, services, and jobs in other industries.

    • Induced impacts refer to purchase of local goods and services at a household level made by employees of the health center and suppliers.

    • Health Center Spending - sum of direct expenditures tied to labor and output.

    • Community Spending - sum of indirect and induced expenditures tied to both labor and output.

    • Tax Revenue - includes local, state, and federal revenues.

  • Total number of jobs taken from the health center’s most recent staffing profile.

  • Total unique patients taken from health center’s calendar year 2017 UDS report.

  • Number of clinics taken from HRSA-approved, in-scope, administrative and service delivery sites as dictated on the health center’s Form 5B - Service Delivery Sites.

Statistics tied to these three figures (health center spending, community spending, and tax revenue) were derived using 2017 IMPLAN online software. IMPLAN is an economic impact assessment software system. It combines a set of extensive databases concerning economic factors, multipliers and demographic statistics with a highly refined and detailed system of modeling software. IMPLAN allows the user to develop local-level input-output models that can estimate the economic impact. The model accomplishes this by identifying direct impacts by sector, then developing a set of indirect and induced impacts by sector through the use of industry-specific multipliers, local purchase coefficients, income-to-output ratios, and other factors and relationships.

ACCESS TO CARE

  • All bullet point statistics were taken from the health center’s 2017 calendar year UDS report.

  • Unique patients reported within the GROWTH chart graphic were taken from calendar year 2015, 2016, and 2017 UDS reports.

  • Services are self-reported and include those captured as HRSA-approved, in-scope of 330 funds and/or oversight, as detailed on the health center’s Form 5A - Services Provided.

HCIA TEACHING GUIDE

What follows is a template for presenting the infographic to a larger audience.

Community Health Centers (CHCs) impact the communities that they serve in several ways. First and most apparent, CHCs serve as a healthcare safety net for low-income individuals. Low income is defined, for a single individual, as earnings totaling no more than $24,280 per year. Compared to the general population, low-income individuals are more likely to receive Medicaid or be uninsured. In fact, in 2017 XX% of our patients received Medicaid and XXX% had no insurance. Because our health center provides a Sliding Fee Discount Program, our low-income, uninsured patients and their families can receive care at a discount relative to their income and family size as it relates to federal poverty guidelines. Patients who live in poverty are responsible only to pay a nominal charge ($XX per medical services). In 2017, XX% of our patients lived in poverty, which, for a single individual, equates to a yearly income of no more than $12,140.

The need for a safety net that CHCs offer is increasing in our community, as demonstrated by our organization’s growth. From 2015 to 2016, our patient population grew by XX patients, or XX%, and from 2016 to 2017, our patient population grew by XX patients, or XX%. This increase can not only be attributed to our efforts to reduce financial barriers to care but also to our efforts to remove barriers to care stemming from language, culture, transportation, health literacy, and insurance enrollment. Indicative of our efforts, our patient satisfaction rate was last reported at XX% satisfied.

While our main aim is to provide quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare services to our community, our CHC has a very positive impact in the local economy. We employ 283 individuals at our nine clinics, with personnel costs supported by federal funding. In addition, our economic impact can be measured in dollars through software named IMPLAN. This software closely approximates economic impact across three areas: health center spending, community spending, and tax revenue. The total impact of first two areas, health center spending and community spending, are calculated via direct, indirect, and induced impacts. Direct impact results from health center expenditures associated with operations, new facilities, and hiring. This amount totals $XX for our health center in the past year. Indirect and induced impacts refer to community spending in terms of the ripple effect resulting from direct expenditures. Indirect impacts, for instance, could refer to the local medical uniform store purchasing office supplies from another local store. Induced impacts refer to the purchase of local goods and services at a household level made by employees of the health center. Community spending, as an aggregate of indirect and induced impacts, totals $XX regarding our health center. Finally, the third area, tax revenue, refers to the total of local, state, and federal tax revenue generated by the health center in the past year. This amount totals $XX. In total, therefore, our health center had an economic impact of $XX in the past year, a significant contribution to the total dollars in our local communities.