The Ingham County Community Health Center Board has decided to close one of its 13 federally qualified health centers to address its more than $4 million operational shortfall.
New Hope Community Health Center, located at Holy Cross Services in Lansing, is expected to close at the end of September. The board's plan also includes employee layoffs and hiring freezes across the county’s clinics.
“It would impact about 14 employees who would be laid off unless they are able to get other positions with the county, and we discussed the possibility of them working either at another health center or with the health department,” said Mary Molloy, chair of the Ingham County Community Health Center Board.
The restructuring is expected to save the county about $3 million in the next fiscal year. The Ingham County Board of Commissioners plans to hire an accounting firm to figure out how to offset the remaining deficit.
“They are going to come in shortly and take a look at our cost structure and advise us as to any other changes that may need to be made,” said Molloy.
The move to close New Hope Community Health Center over the other clinics was largely motivated by Holy Cross Services’ decision to terminate its lease with Ingham County. New Hope has been operating out of Holy Cross Services since 2014.
“Our landlord gave us notice that we need to be out of there by September 30 and they want the space for other uses,” Molloy said.
The plan adopted by the county health board last Thursday will also cut funding for out of state conferences and training for some employees.
Some county officials are blaming the health centers’ deficit on a budget plan that overestimated the number of Medicaid patient visits eligible for reimbursement by nearly 30%.
“The former [chief financial officer] built a budget assuming that we’d have roughly 105,000 Medicaid visits this year and built a budget based on that number,” said Ingham County Commission Chair Ryan Sebolt.
The community health center has had a little over 63,000 visits in the last year, according to Sebolt.
“There’s obviously still more to do but doing nothing was not an option and now something is being done, and that kind of will help alleviate the pressure, and will at least help stop the deficit from ballooning at the rate that it has been,” he said.
The closure of the center, which primarily served homeless patients, is likely to force many to seek healthcare elsewhere. The Ingham County Community Health Center Board plans to provide bus passes to qualified patients to travel to one of the other 12 facilities instead.
The Ingham County Board of Commissioners is expected to finalize the closure of New Hope Community Health Center later this month.
