The Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP), the national trade association representing not-for-profit safety net health plans, is hosting its annual Operations Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah this week. The two-day event brings together top health care executives to discuss a wide variety of challenges facing health plans that serve vulnerable populations across the country. Among those challenges is recruiting and retaining health care workers in safety net facilities. Alex Li, MD, the Chief Health Equity Officer at L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan, is a featured speaker on a panel titled “Tackling Workforce Challenges: Internal Staff and Provider Shortages.”
Dr. Li will share details about L.A. Care’s Elevating the Safety Net, an initiative to recruit, train and retain highly-qualified primary care physicians and psychiatrists for safety net clinics and practices in Los Angeles County. The $155 million initiative launched in 2018 with three programs. They were a Provider Recruitment Program, a Provider Loan Repayment Program, and a Medical School Scholarship Program. Since the launch, 152 providers have been recruited into the county safety net, those clinics and practices that offer care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. Loan repayment grants have been awarded to physicians, relieving them of the burden that might have forced them to practice in more affluent communities. Forty medical school scholarships have been awarded. Half of the scholars attend the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and half attend the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. The vast majority of them are students of color.
Dr. Li’s panel also includes Enrique Martinez-Vidal, Vice President, Quality and Operations at ACAP, who will present on internal workforce staffing challenges. Other topics at the event range from member engagement strategies, care integration, strategies to address social drivers of health, investments in technology advancements, and supporting health equity. The event is open to ACAP members.