Health department looking to cut public clinics

GLENDALE — Facing a projected budget deficit of about $200 million, the county Department of Health Services is looking to cut costs by closing 11 public health facilities, including the Glendale Health Center.

The tentative plan, which is slated to go before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, would cut back on services at six county outpatient health centers and close 11 clinics. The Glendale Health Center, at 501 N. Glendale Ave., provides primary care, immunizations and pediatrics for mostly low-income, underinsured patients.

But department officials say the plan will not cut services. Instead of providing direct primary care, the department says it would look to establish partnerships with privately run clinics that, in turn, would be reimbursed with county dollars for shouldering the increased patient load that could result from the closure of public clinics.

“It’s really not cutting services,” department spokesman Michael Wilson said. “The plan is really privatizing the 11 health centers that the county runs now.”

The public-private partnership model is not a new idea — the department already contracts with private providers across the county. And the cost of handling a primary care visit at one of the county clinics is about $100 higher than at one of the private providers, Wilson said.

“We have higher operating and fixed costs than the potential [private] providers,” he said.

Some healthcare industry officials have attacked the proposal, which they say would be disastrous for low-income cities and neighborhoods that rely heavily on public clinics.

But Glendale, which has several private clinics geared toward serving low-income families, seems well-equipped to absorb Glendale Health Center patients if the facility closes, said Bruce Nelson, director of community services at Glendale Adventist Medical Center.

Nelson also oversees the Glendale Consortium of Safety-net Providers, a nonprofit organization of Glendale health service providers that formed after a 1995 federal bailout of the county health department. The county’s financial woes more than a decade ago prompted local healthcare officials to create the consortium, which works to obtain federal funding for their member organizations, Nelson said.