"Finances Are Uncertain"

I wanted to talk about an article published by the Contra Costa Times discussing a new La Clínica location that opened in Oakley. The article is titled, "Oakley's low-cost clinic doing booming business, yet finances are uncertain."

I was initially confused about La Clínica, because my understanding was that La Clínica was a free clinic, very much like Berkeley's free clinic or St. Anthony's. I thought this because, when you read their mission or website, it states that they provide no cost or low cost services to the low-income and uninsured communities. However it was after I began working there, that I realized the clinic does charge a fee for most of their services. It's "no-cost" for those who are insured, usually through Medi-Cal or Partnership, and for those not insured, it's "low-cost". The way the clinic provides health services to those low-income or uninsured communities, is that their appointment and procedure prices are much lower than any other clinic. For example, a primary care office visit is $25, and La Clínica has only raised their prices by max $10 in the last ten years (according to an employee I talked to), and that makes it more accessible for people on a budget.

I thought this article does a good job of discussing the challenges of running La Clínica. First, because most of their patients are spanish speaking, it's difficult to recruit providers and nurse practitioners who are bilingual. Also, La Clínica does not offer competitive salaries, therefore finding qualified workers is even more difficult when they are competing with clinics who can afford a better salary and increased benefits. Lastly, it's difficult to balance the finances between patients that don't have insurance and those that do. Even if patients are insured through Medi-Cal, they move from being eligible to not being eligible quite often, so even insurance doesn't always secure a payment to La Clínica.

The article closes by stating that the Oakley La Clínica center is doing fine now, however it's very likely that they will be in deficit "right around the corner". I don't know specifically about the finances of the North Vallejo site I work with, but I am surprised to see that there is a large number and variety of staff members. I think this is a good topic to try and talk to the staff about, and ask if their work was ever affected or if the problems with the Oakley site are common throughout the 30+ La Clínica sites. The article link is below

http://www.laclinica.org/presscoverage/2013pc/news1305_01_ContraCostaTimes.pdf