Part Two | The Healthcare Partnership Nobody Is Talking About: Hospice + FQHCs

What if one of the most promising partnerships in serious illness care has been hiding in plain sight?

In Part Two of The Healthcare Partnership Nobody Is Talking About: Hospice + FQHCs, Chris Comeaux continues his conversation with Kyle Ahlenstorf about the largely untapped opportunity for hospice and palliative care organizations to collaborate with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).  The discussion explores how hospice and palliative care can extend an FQHC's reach into the home while FQHCs bring an established infrastructure of primary care, behavioral health, care coordination, community health workers, and preventive services.  Together, these capabilities could create a stronger continuum of care for patients with serious and chronic illness. 

Kyle also takes listeners inside the operational side of FQHCs—from behavioral health and telehealth partnerships to the financial role of federal funding and the 340B program.  The conversation moves into EMR interoperability, quality reporting, value-based care and ACO participation, as well as emerging opportunities around rural transformation grants and service co-location.

For hospice leaders, the message is clear: FQHCs should not simply be viewed as another referral source.  They may be strategic community partners capable of helping organizations reach patients earlier, coordinate care more effectively, and preserve quality of life across the continuum. 

Perhaps the biggest opportunity is still ahead.  Kyle challenges hospice and palliative care leaders to "think of us as partners," emphasizing that stronger community connections allow health centers to better serve the patients who depend on them.  Chris closes by asking listeners to consider what new models could emerge when hospice, palliative care, FQHCs, payers, technology, and population health strategies begin connecting the dots. 

5 Key Takeaways

• Hospice and FQHCs have complementary strengths.  FQHCs provide broad primary and preventive care infrastructure, while hospice and palliative care organizations can bring specialized serious-illness services directly into patients' homes.
• Know who to approach.  Referral specialists, care coordinators, and community health workers can become critical connection points between FQHC patients and hospice or palliative care resources.
• Behavioral health creates another partnership opportunity.  Integrated therapy, substance use disorder services, psychiatric medication management, telehealth, and even shared or fractional staffing models could expand access to care.
• Hospice leaders need to understand the FQHC business model.  Operating revenue, federal funding, and the 340B program help FQHCs support services such as care coordination and community health work that may otherwise be difficult to reimburse.
• The next frontier may be collaborative models built around value and access.  ACO participation, rural transformation initiatives, co-location, preventive care, and better care transitions create opportunities for hospice and palliative care leaders willing to get to the table early.
  
  
  

If you're a hospice, palliative care, FQHC, nonprofit, or healthcare leader, this conversation offers a challenge: look beyond traditional referral relationships and start thinking in terms of partnership.  Who is your local FQHC?  What capabilities could you bring to one another—and what patients are falling through the gaps because those conversations haven't happened yet?

Show Transcript

Special Guest:

 Kyle Ahlenstorf 

CEO of Infinity Health

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Our Host

Chris Comeaux

MLAS, CPA
President / CEO of Teleios

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