Community clinics are an integral part of California's primary care and safety-net system, especially for uninsured, underinsured, and low-income people. These nonprofit primary care centers include Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), nonprofit Rural Health Clinics (RHCs), free clinics, and other licensed safety-net centers such as family planning and school-based clinics.

This report, part of CHCF's California Health Care Almanac, captures key measures of clinics' financial health from 2005 to 2008. It is based on a 2010 report prepared by Capital Link in collaboration with the foundation.

Key findings include:

• Between 2005 and 2008, clinics grew in revenue, patients, visits, and staff. Operating revenue grew 22%, with almost two-thirds coming from patient services.
• Community clinics rely heavily on Medi-Cal and Medicare, which accounted for 89% of net patient service revenue in 2008.
• Staffing levels are growing rapidly, particularly for support staff, which may highlight increased provision of ancillary services as well as the growing importance of clinics as employers and economic forces in their communities.
• Overall activity is increasing at the site level. Patients, visits, and staffing are all growing at a faster rate than the number of clinics in the state.
• Financially strong clinics tend to have high revenue (over $15 million), serve a high number of low-income patients, and have high reimbursement levels compared to financially weak clinics.
• Both strong and weak clinics have similar productivity and expenses on a per-visit basis.
• The smallest clinics in revenue are more likely to experience financial difficulty and have reimbursement levels that are half that of the largest clinics.

This Almanac report is available under Document Downloads, along with the 2009 edition. The full report is available on the Capital Link site through the External Links below.