Specialty Care Initiative
 California’s uninsured population has difficulties in accessing specialty care services at their community health clinics. About 85% of federally qualified health center medical director’s reported patients “often” or “almost always” have problems in accessing specialty care services. The demand for specialty care continues to grow due to population growth, increase in uninsured patients, and increased health needs. While clinics have made developed and implemented initiatives and pilot programs to address this issue, access to specialty care is worse today than it was 2 years ago.

With the support of the California HealthCare Foundation, the three Northern California consortia are working in partnership to support community health center clinicians and administrators on the issue of specialty care access for patients served by safety net institutions in California.

The partnership is convening specialty care coordinators at clinic locations to share tools and resources to increase access to specialty services for these vulnerable populations. The partnership has also created an online tool for identifying community health center locations that deliver specialty care services.

This tool is available at: http://www.specialty-care.org