Federally Qualified Health Care Centers (FQHCs)

Doctors rarely make house calls these days, but half of Vermonters have access to the next best thing: affordable community health care. An FQHC is a community-operated nonprofit providing comprehensive primary care – including medical, dental, and behavioral care, and affordable prescription drugs – to anyone in the community who wants it. Being “federally qualified” means that these centers get funds from Washington to provide sliding-scale fees to the uninsured: the lower your income, the less you pay. Vermont has 27 sites operated by six FQHCs plus one FQHC “look-alike,” which has not yet received federal funding. FQHCs are part of a state-wide network that also includes rural health clinics and free clinics.

In 2006*, Vermont’s FQHCs:
• Scheduled and conducted 366,736 patient visits
• Provided services to 86,072 patients (17 percent children,
67 percent adults 18-64, 16 percent adults 65 and over)

Employees: 341 full-time equivalent employees
(56 percent health care professionals, 44 percent administrative)

2006 Expenditures: $29,261,257

2006 Revenues: $29,261,257
(39 percent Medicare/Medicaid, 20 percent private insurance,
17 percent federal grant funds, 8 percent patient fees,
8 percent grants and donations, 8 percent other revenue)

* 2006 is the most recent year that data are available.
Patient information is for all seven nonprofits. Employee and financial
information is for the five FQHCs that were federally funded in 2006.

Source: Bi-State Primary Care Association, www.bistatepca.org

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