
ALTAMED CASE STUDY
With patient coverage statuses rapidly changing and EMR systems that aren’t equipped to monitor coverage events, patients find themselves unknowingly dropping from Medicaid coverage. The result? An inconsistent member coverage experience, expensive churn, uncovered visits, and delays in billing.
CHALLENGES
- Medicaid coverage statuses change constantly
- Existing systems don’t provide ongoing coverage insight
- Once Medicaid coverage is established, it isn’t maintained
- Patient retention suffers as members lapse out of coverage
- Coverage lapses disrupt continuity of care and revenue
- Providers are expected to act as liaison between patients and Medicaid
FROM REACTIVE TO PROACTIVE
AltaMed, the nation’s largest federally qualified health center (FQHC), serves over 350,000 patients in Los Angeles and Orange County, with approximately 70% of their patients enrolled in Medi-Cal. Upon discovering that roughly 17,000 members were lapsing out of coverage every month at an annual value of $850 per member, AltaMed realized that they were exposing themselves to the risk of an annual revenue loss of over 170 million. Unable to ignore the glaring issue in front of them, AltaMed’s Vice President of Patient Financial Services Dr. Robert Young, and the leadership team, knew that they needed to focus on how to keep patients covered and assist with Medi-Cal re-enrollment.
THE SOLUTION
Screen members for programs and gain insight into who is covered

THE RESULT
With detected lapses coming in, AltaMed allocated a team of 8 representatives to re-enroll patients. Using PointCare’s Screening & Intelligence+, the team contacted the lapsed patients and walked them through the process of re-enrollment. While most patients were unaware that they had even lapsed from coverage, all patients were grateful for the proactive outreach and individualized attention they received.
To date, the AltaMed team has re-enrolled 28% of the patients who were identified as lapsing out of Medi-Cal coverage. A process that is often confusing and lengthy for patients, has been streamlined with re-enrollments taking, on average, less than 3 weeks to be approved.
And using PointCare’s platform, AltaMed has ongoing visibility into patients’ Medi-Cal application status, easily identifying next steps in outreach and tracking their team’s success.