VENTURA — As Southern California officials wrestle with health care funding reductions, they might be wise to look to the north, where an unusual partnership between Ventura County and private doctors has resulted in a dramatic turnaround for medical clinics.
Three years ago, Ventura County's supervisors nearly closed the county's four family care clinics, where the poor can receive basic medical services at minimal or no cost. Although they served nearly 20,000 patients annually, the clinics ran close to $1 million in the red each year.
But an enterprising group of doctors stepped in with an idea for privatizing the clinics, and today the system is self-sufficient and serving more patients than ever, officials said.
Three clinics have become semiprivate corporations, distinct from the government that spawned them but still charged with providing care to anyone who walks through the door. Plans are in the works to convert the fourth, in Simi Valley, sometime next year.
In each clinic where the county has relinquished control, care has been improved, the clinics have grown, patient-doctor relationships have been strengthened, and the county has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, county health officials and patients said.
Officials say there are two key reasons for the success of the new system: It provides a profit incentive for doctors and frees them of unnecessary bureaucratic controls.
"Everybody's a winner," said Phillipp Wessels, director of the Ventura County Health Care Agency and one of the principal designers of the public-private partnerships. "The patients are getting better care, taxpayers are no longer paying a subsidy and the physicians are pleased with their practices."
Wessels said he is not aware of other counties in California that have privatized clinics, although some have called him about the idea.
Although the public-private partnership works well in Ventura County, it may be more difficult to establish in urban areas, said Larry Roberts, deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
"It depends on the situation," Roberts said. Ventura County differs from Los Angeles County in that it has less demand for health services and a Board of Supervisors more willing to take chances, he said.
Los Angeles County has used private contractors for health services with mixed results, Roberts said. But he added that Ventura County's successes bear watching, even as Los Angeles County considers shutting down 16 health centers because of a lack of funding.
