Loans – $5 million loan program goals to shore up Texas safety-net clinics throughout COVID-19 – State of Reform
Michael Goldberg | Nov 25, 2020
A brand new emergency loan program developed by Episcopal Well being Basis (EHF) and financed by the Austin Neighborhood Basis will intention to assist clinics stay open throughout COVID-19 – a time when Security-net clinics throughout Texas have been hit laborious by the monetary contraction wrought by the pandemic.
Based on a latest EHF information launch, the $5 million Texas Clinic Emergency loan Fund provides chosen federally certified well being facilities (FQHCs) and different charity clinics as much as $1 million in low-interest loans to assist offset lowered revenues from fewer routine affected person visits, shifts to telemedicine, improve in uninsured sufferers, and different further bills brought on by COVID-19.
Misplaced affected person income together with added prices related to COVID-19 protocols have catalyzed the closure of many clinics. Dental and imaginative and prescient clinics have been significantly impacted. Different clinics needed to briefly shut places resulting from workers publicity to the virus.
EHF has indicated that a lot of the taking part clinics have needed to put money into new tools and know-how for telemedicine. Moreover, clinics are additionally seeing a major uptick in uninsured sufferers, which has led to thousands and thousands of {dollars} in unplanned prices for a few of the clinics.
“Many of those group clinics have seen their revenues drop by 60%, whereas prices for issues like telehealth, COVID-19 testing and PPE maintain rising,” stated Elena Marks, Episcopal Well being Basis’s president and CEO. “There’s a limit to traditional grants from philanthropy that can help these clinics, but the loan program works as potential ‘recyclable funding’ to keep more clinics up and running to serve low-income families who may need the care now more than ever.”
To date, six FQHCs that every have a number of clinic websites have secured loans starting from $250,000 to $1 million, by the Texas Clinic Emergency loan Fund. The loans require no fee within the first 12 months, and have a three-year compensation time period. Throughout the six clinics, service communities embrace the larger Houston, Austin, and 20 Texas counties. All in all, the taking part clinics see greater than 280,000 sufferers yearly throughout 100 totally different places.
The loan fund is a part of a $20 million EHF Influence Investing Program. Based on EHF, this system will allow the group to make use of monetary instruments like debt and fairness investments in for-profit and non-profit organizations to advance the identical methods the inspiration seeks to attain by conventional grantmaking.
EHF says it partnered with Austin Neighborhood Basis on the loan fund due to its expertise in impression investing in Texas.
“The well being and financial penalties of COVID-19 have pressed the philanthropic sector to hunt inventive options that aren’t sure by the confines of conventional grantmaking,” Mike Nellis, chief government officer, Austin Neighborhood Basis, stated. “By partnering with Episcopal Health Foundation, our organizations are able to provide alternative financial vehicles to meet the needs of community clinics as they navigate operating in a pandemic environment.”
The preliminary funding for the Texas Clinic Emergency loan Fund was developed by EHF. Austin Neighborhood Basis serves because the fiscal sponsor and distributes the loans. EHF’s information launch indicated that Avivar Capital serves because the fund’s program administrator, implementing the fund in partnership with nationwide leaders in impression investing, clinic financing and loan administration.
