Two large health care organizations serving historically disadvantaged populations in the northwest Denver metropolitan area — one focused on physical health care, the other on mental health care — have announced plans to merge.
Leader of Clinica Family Health and Mental Health Partners The merger will enable both organizations to continue to provide more comprehensive health care to the local community, the company said. The combined organization, to be called Clinica Family Health & Wellness, will provide physical, behavioral and oral health care in Boulder, Broomfield, Gilpin and Adams counties.
“Above all, this merger is about our patients and customers,” Clinica president and CEO Simon Smith said in a statement.
Both the founding and merging organizations are nonprofit organizations.
The merger comes just months after two large community mental health centers, Wellpower and Jefferson Center, announced plans to merge, a decision prompted in part by changes in how such centers are funded and regulated at the state level.
Community mental health centers like Mental Health Partners and Federally Qualified Health Centers like Clinica typically see many patients who are covered by government insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare. This means that policy changes in these programs, such as state plans to make funding for mental health centers more competitive, can have a significant impact on the sustainability of their business models. Combined with the rising costs of delivering health care, there is growing pressure for community-focused clinics to merge in order to survive.
In a news release, the two organizations said the combination would “provide greater opportunities to diversify revenues, strengthen combined assets and position the organizations for future advancements in the health system.”
The two groups say the merger will also make it easier to recruit and train new staff and improve access to care.
Dixie Casford, co-CEO of Mental Health Partners, said in a statement that the merger will give the combined organization a greater voice in policy debates.
“By coming together, we can more effectively advance health equity,” Casford said. “As a unified organization, we aim to positively impact policies, systems and funding structures in ways we cannot individually.”
The merger also fits with a trend to bring physical and mental health services together in one place and to create better “warm handoffs” between different types of care that need to work together to address health issues.
“We’re building a space where your primary care physician can work side-by-side with your mental health care and oral health care physicians,” Jen Leoz, the other co-CEO of Mental Health Partners, said in a statement. “By fostering strong communication between physician teams, we can more effectively achieve our shared goal of improving health.”
Clinica has eight locations serving approximately 59,000 patients annually. The combined organization will be led by Smith, with Leoz serving as chief integrated medical officer and Casford serving as chief administrative officer.
The combined organization’s board of directors will be made up of members of the Clinica and Mental Health Partners boards. The majority of board members will continue to be patients, a move Clinica said it adopted to give it oversight and influence over the people the centers serve.
