Historically, the health care financing system has ignored the impact of what are currently called “social determinants of health” on health outcomes and health care costs in the United States. Now, forward-looking states, such as New York, are urging health care payors, particularly those serving low-income populations, to incorporate community-based social services organizations into their networks. Epstein Becker Green has experience providing comprehensive strategic and legal advice regarding how a collective of organizations traditionally outside the health care system can avail itself of health care (insurance) and other available funds in a legally compliant and effective manner.
For example, our firm is currently representing a diverse group of community-based organizations (“CBOs”) in New York State coalescing to address the social determinants of health care through capacity building and collective action. Using a novel “pathways hub” model, Epstein Becker Green’s client is raising funds and organizing CBOs to design and implement a model for improving community health by identifying the need for, and targeting delivery of, social services that have proven to have a significant impact on health outcomes and can result in dramatic reductions in health care costs.
The Epstein Becker Green team is providing strategic advice and the legal services necessary to establish and operationalize the CBOs’ new collective organizational structure. Specifically, we provide advice and services relating to the CBOs’ corporate, governance, and committee structure, membership rights and responsibilities, policies and procedures, compliance activities, funds flow, IT and data management, privacy and security, managed care agreements, and payment methodologies. Successful navigation of the complex health care regulatory environment is, of course, essential to the client’s ability to achieve its mission.
Epstein Becker Green is also working with the designers of the “pathways hub” model on how the initiative should be organized in other states around the United States. Epstein Becker Green and its clients are trailblazing here—adapting health care organizational structures and devising novel financing schemes to hopefully achieve groundbreaking improvements in community health.