Report Confirms Community Health Centers Lower Health Care Costs
A new report from Avalere Health, a highly-regarded health care research and economic analysis firm, finds that Community Health Centers (CHCs) reduce utilization and spending for other, costlier types of care, including emergency room and inpatient hospital care. Those studies comparing health care expenditures for patients of different provider types find that CHCs are associated with lower health care spending.
CHCs have long been praised by health care experts and policy-makers for improving health care access and lowering the overall cost of care for those they serve. Their record of success has received bipartisan praise from Members of Congress. Earlier this year, for example, the late U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) stated that “No health care system is as efficient as health centers, and no health care system is as high-quality or as patient-centered.” U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who has co-sponsored legislation with Kennedy to expand the reach of health centers, recently said that “Community health centers have made a huge impact in people’s lives.”
The Avalere report notes that studies have found that “CHC users in fact receive more disease screenings, better monitoring and treatment of chronic disease, and improved frequency and timing of well visits.” The report concludes that when seen together, the studies provide evidence that CHCs were associated with lower overall health care costs, fewer avoidable hospitalizations, and more preventive care.
The health reform legislation in both the House and Senate would authorize higher funding for CHCs, but any actual increase in funding would only be determined later through subsequent legislation. Congress should instead pursue a different strategy and provide this additional funding as part of health reform itself. Avalere Health noted in a companion memo that CBO would in that situation “include the cost of the additional funding (as well as the savings) in its score for health reform legislation…. Our recent review of the literature that focused on the association between CHC use and health care costs, commissioned by NACHC, would be a useful resource for a CBO scoring exercise. Nearly all of the studies we examined found that the use of CHCs was associated with lower healthcare spending or less acute care utilization,” and concluded that “the body of evidence published to date shows that CHCs have the potential to offset both utilization and spending for other types of care, and that factor should be considered.”
NACHC President and CEO Tom Van Coverden stated that “We welcome these findings from Avalere. Their comprehensive analysis reaffirms what the studies consistently conclude – that health centers save lives and money, for taxpayers and private payers alike. In the context of national health reform, an investment in expanding health centers can produce a huge dividend in both improved health outcomes and significantly lower overall costs.”
View the Avelere report here.
View the report summary here.
Founded in 1971, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance and expand access to quality, community-responsive health care for America’s medically underserved and uninsured. NACHC represents the nation’s network of more than 1,200 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), which serve more than 20 million people through 7,000 sites located in all of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam.
Avalere Health is an advisory services company whose core purpose is to create innovative solutions to complex healthcare problems. Based in Washington DC, the firm delivers research, analysis, insight, and strategy for leaders in healthcare business and policy. Avalere's experts are drawn from the federal government (e.g., CMS, OMB, CBO, and the Congress), Fortune 500 healthcare companies, top consultancies, and nonprofits. The firm offers deep substance in areas ranging from healthcare coverage and financing to the changing role of evidence in healthcare decision-making. Its focus on strategy is supported by a rigorous, in-house analytic research group that uses public and private data to generate quantitative insight
