Community Benefit: Building a Sustainable Infrastructure

1
Community Benefit Building a Sustainable
Infrastructure
845 am session
2
What is Community Benefit?

• Charity care
• Government-sponsored indigent health care
  unpaid costs of (means tested) public programs
• Medicaid
• State Childrens Health Insurance Program
• Medically indigent programs
• Community Benefit Services (A G)

3
What is Community Benefit?
Community benefit programs and services provide
treatment or promote health and healing. A true
community benefit is provided to address a real
community need, not for marketing purposes, and
meets at least one of the following criteria
Provides a service or program that would likely
be discontinued or would need to be provided by
another not-for-profit or government provider if
the decision were made on a purely financial
basis
Involves education or research that improves
overall community health
4
Community Benefit Process

• Community benefit is a planned, managed,
  organized, and measured approach to a health
  care organizations participation in meeting
  identified community health needs.
• It implies collaboration with a community to
  benefit its residents particularly the poor,
  minorities, and other underserved groups by
  improving health status and quality of life.

5
Basic Steps in Community Benefit Planning and
Implementation
Building a Sustainable Infrastructure
Communicating
Interrelated Interdependent Simultaneous
Determining What Counts
Planning
Accounting For Costs
Evaluating
6
Basic Steps in Community Benefit Planning and
Implementation
Building a Sustainable Infrastructure
Communicating
Interrelated Interdependent Simultaneous
Determining What Counts
Planning
Accounting For Costs
Evaluating
7
Sustainable Infrastructure

8
Renew Commitment

• Guidelines
• Use your mission and values
• Integrate community benefit into key
  organizational plans
• Hold leaders accountable
• Get the culture right

9

Mission and Values

• Community benefit programs are the link between
  mission and action.

10
CEO THE Community Benefit ChampionwithBoar
d of Trustees OversightandSenior Leadership
and Physician Support
Hold Leaders Accountable
11
The 3 Rs for Getting SustainingLeadership
Commitment
elevancy
eturn
epetition
12
Relevancy ThroughEducation And Involvement

• How can community benefit?
• Be part of the solution to the
• organizations challenges
• Answer questions from the
• Board of Trustees
• Community leaders
• Local newspaper
• Unions
• Help your CEO sleep better

13
Return ThroughData and Stories

• Creditable information that demonstrates your
  organization is

• Fulfilling the mission
• Doing enough to deserve public trust and tax
  exemption
• Impacting the communitys health
• Involving physicians and employees

• Spending resources wisely
• Implementing a creditable charity care policy
• Partnering with the community
• Telling the right story to the right audiences

14
Repetition ThroughInformal and Formal Channels
Creating the culture takes

• Formal Channels
• Reporting relationships
• Board agenda item
• Management meeting agenda item
• Orientation for new employees and physicians
• Hiring criteria
• Board selection
• Performance reviews
• Other?

• Informal Channels
• Bulletin boards
• Cafeteria table tents
• Internal news mediums
• Satisfaction surveys-physician, employee,
  consumers
• Elevator chats
• Other?

15
Build Basic Structures

• Guidelines
• Commit staff to community benefits
• Form a community benefit internal workgroup
• Budget for community benefits
• Establish policies that support community
  benefits
• Collaborate with community partners

16
Community Benefit Point Person

• Qualifications
• Preferably full-time
• Key responsibility not other duties as
  assigned
• Senior level
• Planning and budgeting authority
• Direct access to CEO
• Clout to get things done
• Collaborative work style, with the community and
  within the organization
• Knowledge of public health
• Understands community benefit

• Locations
• Mission
• Finance
• Planning
• Executive Office
• Community Benefit
• Community Partnerships
• Community Relations
• Quality Performance
• ?

17
Community Benefit Internal Workgroup

• Representatives
• Community benefit point person
• Finance
• Communications
• Planning
• Board
• Community
• Advocacy/government relations
• Patient care
• Whos missing?

• Functions
• Define community
• Community need and asset assessment
• Community input
• Prioritizing needs
• Community benefit plan
• Budget
• Data collection
• Community benefit reporting

18
Community Benefit Budget

• Key Question for the Board
• How much is enough?

19
Community Benefit Budget

• Consider
• Responsiveness to health needs in your community
• Expected trend in community poverty rates,
  unemployment, insurance coverage
• Other providers in the community how do you
  compare?
• Available organization revenues
• Historical trends in community benefit costs
  including charity care
• Tax exemption value
• Your or other states requirements

20
Policies Review and Update

• Physician involvement
• Employee policies
• Advocacy policies
• Environmental responsibility policies

• Charity care
• Bad debt
• Billing and collection
• Travel and education
• Conflicts of interest/vendors
• Executive compensation

21
Community Partners

• Whos missing?
• Consumers
• Other providers
• Community leaders
• Public organizations
• Religious congregations
• What needs to be repaired?

22
Community Benefit Then and Now

• Traci Van
• Community Benefit Manager
• vant_at_sutterhealth.org

23
Our Strategic Plan

• 10 Years Ago
• Not included
• 5 Years Ago
• Demonstrate our not for profit heritage and
  Community Benefit leadership
• Today
• Improve health care access affordability
• Form new partnerships with community based
  organizations to improve the health of the
  underserved and at-risk populations.

24
Increased Accountability

• 10 Years Ago
• State mandate
• 5 Years Ago
• Tied to incentives
• Highlighted at Governance Symposium
• Today
• Part of system dashboard measure
• Discuss at Board of Trustee meetings

25
Growing Affiliate Support

• 10 Years Ago
• No coordinated support from system
• 5 Years
• Sutter Health Community Benefit Council
• Shared Goal Increasing enrollment in health
  coverage for children

26
Growing Affiliate Support

• Today
• Full-time system Community Benefit Manager
• Network of Community Benefit professionals
• Development of tools and resources

27
Challenges

• Different communities means different needs
• Finding commonalities among affiliates
• Locally governed
• No system budget to encourage local Community
  Benefit development
• Varying levels of local expertise