title: When patients govern: federal grant funding and uncompensated care at federally qualified health centers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine if the proportion of consumers on federally qualified health center (FQHC) governing boards is associated with their use of federal grant funds to provide uncompensated care.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using FQHC data from the Uniform Data System, county-level data from the Area Resource File and governing board data from FQHC grant applications, the uncompensated care an FQHC provides relative to the amount of its federal funding is modeled as a function of board and executive committee composition using fixed-effects regression with FQHC and county-level controls.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Consumer governance does not predict how much uncompensated care an FQHC provides relative to the size of its federal grant. Rather, the proportion of an FQHC's patient-mix that is uninsured drives uncompensated care provision.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Aside from a small executive committee effect, consumer governance does not influence FQHCs' provision of uncompensated care. More work is needed to understand the role of consumer governance.
authors.affiliation: Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. bradwright@brown.edu
authors.forename: Brad
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Thomas C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Ricketts
mesh_terms: D003151:Community Health Centers / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006075:Governing Board / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D017057:Medically Uninsured; D017664:Uncompensated Care / Q000191:economics*