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When patients govern: federal grant funding and uncompensated care at federally qualified health centers
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

When patients govern: federal grant funding and uncompensated care at federally qualified health centers

Brad Wright and Thomas C Ricketts
Journal of health care for the poor and underserved, Vol.24(2), pp.954-967
05/2013
DOI: 10.1353/hpu.2013.0068
PMCID: PMC5590367
PMID: 23728059
url
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/5590367View
Open Access

Abstract

To determine if the proportion of consumers on federally qualified health center (FQHC) governing boards is associated with their use of federal grant funds to provide uncompensated care. Using FQHC data from the Uniform Data System, county-level data from the Area Resource File and governing board data from FQHC grant applications, the uncompensated care an FQHC provides relative to the amount of its federal funding is modeled as a function of board and executive committee composition using fixed-effects regression with FQHC and county-level controls. Consumer governance does not predict how much uncompensated care an FQHC provides relative to the size of its federal grant. Rather, the proportion of an FQHC's patient-mix that is uninsured drives uncompensated care provision. Aside from a small executive committee effect, consumer governance does not influence FQHCs' provision of uncompensated care. More work is needed to understand the role of consumer governance.
Community Health Centers - economics Community Health Centers - organization & administration Financing, Government - economics Financing, Government - organization & administration Governing Board - economics Governing Board - organization & administration Health Services Needs and Demand Humans Medically Uninsured Uncompensated Care - economics

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