A western Mass. health nonprofit said it's trying to direct thousands of clients to alternative services as it prepares to shut down a community outreach program.
The Center for Human Development oversaw a program called Innovative Care Partners, which also included staff at the Gandara Center and ServiceNet.
The program, which ends June 30th, has helped coordinate care for vulnerable people, including many with mental illness, and helped them navigate the health care system.
Spokesperson Ben Craft said the closing comes as states are losing millions of dollars from the Trump administration's massive cuts to Medicaid. He said the Massachusetts health department announced it would have to defund 20 outreach programs across Massachusetts, known collectively as Community Partners. At the same time, the state ended a mandate that required certain medical groups to contract with organizations like Community Partners.
"The work that [Community Partners] was engaged in was not only coordinating between providers but really reaching people in the community, in some cases unhoused individuals, finding them where they were," Craft said.
The model became popular after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, with "the idea that really we could get ahead of people's health circumstances, and particularly in the instances of chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, asthma ... before they got to the emergency room and they had hospital visits," Craft said, "which are not only stressful for individuals and families, but also for the health care system are pretty costly."
Craft said the Center for Human Development is shoring up its primary care program, which will help fill in some gaps for the clients losing outreach services.
"There are other programs that exist, some of which predate the existence of the community partners program, that could provide some form of support, and our focus is making sure people can access those services," he said.
In addition to about 3,500 people in western Massachusetts losing coordination services, Craft said, 70 staff members will be laid off at the Center for Human Development, the Gandara center and ServiceNet.