Federal Medicaid “Unwinding” Could Cause Community Health Centers to Lose Care Capacity for as Many as 2.1 Million Patients Nationwide

WASHINGTON (Jan. 19, 2023)—A new report from the Geiger Gibson / RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative examining the financial and patient care impact of unwinding Medicaid’s continuous enrollment policy finds that up to 2.5 million community health center (CHC) patients could lose their Medicaid coverage once continuous enrollment ceases. This could, in turn, trigger a loss of $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion in patient revenue, which amounts to between 4% and 7% of national total health center revenue. A revenue impact of this size means that CHCs, the nation’s largest primary care system for medically underserved rural and urban communities, will be able to serve between 1.2 million and 2.1 million fewer patients and employ 10.7 thousand to 18.5 thousand fewer staff. The study is based on estimates of the unwinding impact prepared by the Urban Institute as well as data on community health centers from the 2021 Uniform Data System data.   The authors at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health report that these estimates likely are low, since they were based on 2021 health center data and the number of CHC patients likely increased over the 2022-2023 time period.