How Two Funders Collaborated To Address Challenges In The Safety Net And Rural Health Care

This Health Affairs blog post describes an emerging strategy of health funders to develop long-term collaborative relationships with their peers to tackle complex health and health care challenges. Specifically, the blog post describes the experience and successes of a partnership between a national foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Episcopal Health Foundation (EHF) in advancing safety-net payment reform in Texas. These collaborative efforts also provided insights into addressing the rural hospital closure crisis and furthered the field’s understanding of how to integrate social determinants of health within the Medicaid managed care environment. The blog highlights how EHF's participation in the Delta Center for a Thriving Safety Net's helped them foster relationships and learn from the cohort of state PCAs and BHSAs to advance payment reform.