Community Care Cooperative Extends MassHealth Contract, Expands to Louisiana

Boston-based Community Care Cooperative (C3), a nonprofit organization created by Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), has grown to 22 FQHCs and renewed its contract with the MassHealth ACO program. Earlier this year, C3 announced it would participate in CMS’ ACO REACH program, including expanding outside of Massachusetts to work with Access Health Louisiana, an FQHC with 32 clinics and school-based health centers located throughout communities in Southeast Louisiana.

The new contract with the MassHealth Accountable Care Organization (ACO) program began April 1, 2023, and extends through 2027.

The organization responded in July to the Commonwealth’s request for response that was released on April 14, 2022 and was notified of its award on Nov. 2, 2022. C3’s response included innovative initiatives and practices in value-based care, behavioral health and perinatal care for its anticipated 213,000 Medicaid enrollees.

The FQHC-based organization also announces the addition of five new community health centers, bringing their membership total to 22 FQHCs and one affiliated practice. The new health centers include Caring Health Center, Duffy Health Center, Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, Greater New Bedford Community Health Center, and Outer Cape Health Services. They join 17 other FQHCs across the state, eight of which founded the organization in 2016 in response to Massachusetts’ new Medicaid ACO program. "We are proud to join an organization with health centers and our patients at the core of its mission," said Guy Fish, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, in a statement. "C3’s record showcases proven success both operationally and financially, and as an incoming Board member, I look forward to seeing their accomplishments over the next five years."

In its first five-year contract, C3, the only FQHC-owned ACO in the state and the largest in the country, said it saw significant shared savings that were distributed back to the member health centers as well as high performance in the areas of quality and care management. In the next five years, C3 will continue this work as well as focus on primary care capitation and value-based care for its enrollees. "This new contract, with its innovative value-based payment model, allows us to continue improving on the outcomes and the experience of patients as they access care, and to place equity at the center of our work," said Kiame Mahaniah, M.D., CEO of Lynn Community Health Center and C3’s Board Chair, in a statement.

C3 recently announced that it has grown nationally and will work with its first FQHC outside of Massachusetts as part of the ACO REACH contract with CMMI. With the addition of Access Health Louisiana to its network for ACO REACH, C3 expects to serve over 1,400 Medicare patients in Louisiana and 10,000 Medicare patients in Massachusetts through the program.

“We see ACO REACH as a tremendous opportunity to offer our model of care to Medicare beneficiaries who are disproportionately members of under-resourced and low-income communities and also members of the BIPOC community – and build on the incredible successes we have had in the Massachusetts Medicaid ACO program,” said Christina Severin, CEO of C3, in a statement. “We applaud CMMI for launching a model that centers health equity and enables FQHCs to meaningfully participate in upside and downside financial risk with Medicare.”

Community Technology Cooperative (CTC), a subsidiary of C3, recently announced that 10 FQHCs throughout Massachusetts have transitioned to Epic’s EHR) system, after a yearlong implementation phase.

While CTC and the associated health centers will support ongoing annual operating costs of Epic’s EHR system, part of implementation costs were funded through a one-time $5 million payment from Massachusetts’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, as well as a grant through the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) to make EHR improvements at community health centers.

Two additional Massachusetts FQHCs will go live with CTC’s instance of Epic in 2023.