If You Build It, They May Not Come: Expanding Primary Care in Health Care Deserts

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are uniquely poised to leverage new health care funding to expand their capacity in underserved communities. To access these funds, FQHCs use their expertise and community assessments to determine where health care deserts exists; however just opening a new clinic in an underserved community does not guarantee that it will be highly accessed by the surrounding population. Since 2015, Brightpoint Health has opened six new clinics and increased its patients' visits from 20,000 visits to 180,000 by year's end. This session will discuss a four-point strategy for building a flourishing clinic. These strategies are: a traditional community-level marketing campaign, targeted outreach to community partners, integration of wrap-around and clinic services, and the incorporation of local private physicians with pre-existing patient panels. This combined strategy is replicable in other communities and states, and offers key lessons learned that can be utilized in a variety of diverse settings.