Two ACH Board members, Anne Kauffman Nolon, CEO of Sun River Health and Christy Trotter, CEO of Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, were interviewed for this article in Axios:
“Local health facilities will be ground zero for the sweeping Medicaid changes that the GOP budget law unleashed,” reports Maya Goldman at Axios.
The $1 trillion in cuts to federal Medicaid funding will quickly translate into lower reimbursements for facilities that are already grappling with higher labor costs and inflationary pressures. The CEO of New York community health center organization Sun River Health said this is already the most challenging time she’s faced in her 48 years with the organization.
“It’s been tougher and more painful in this year so far,” Anne Kauffman Nolon told Axios. “It really does threaten the existence of community health centers.”
Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic in the Pacific northwest expects the new Medicaid work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks to affect 15% to 20% of its patient population — and wipe out 2% to 3% of its revenue, CEO Christy Trotter told Axios.
The organization had already been preparing for a financial crunch from the end of pandemic-era temporary funding, well before Congress took up the reconciliation package.
Now, administrators are analyzing how to better align non-revenue producing services, like outreach programs and case management, to reach those patients who will benefit most, Trotter said.
“We’re challenging ourselves,” she said. “It has to have a return for the patients and for us financially.”
She said the organization may also have to scale back contracts in Washington and Oregon to care for refugees, who will stop being eligible for Medicaid in October 2026.
Finding new ways to pay for health care — like ramping up initiatives to pay providers based on care quality and outcomes, and providing better incentives for primary care — will be crucial for facilities trying to weather the Medicaid changes, Trotter said.