Back to the MissionA Paradigm Shift:

Building Profit Centers for Sustainability

The IssueGulf Bend Center has evolved over the past two decades. The issue is the evolutionary process moved us away from our mission to “improve the quality of life of persons and their families who are challenged with problems related to mental illness and intellectual and/or developmental disorders.” We were founded on the belief that ‘everyone’ deserved access to services and treatment.

History

Inception to 1992: Gulf Bend Center served the whole community, regardless of diagnosis or payer source. Not only was the affected person served, their loved ones received the support they needed.

1995: The state had a budget shortfall. Two financial strategies were implemented.o Reduce the number of people served [with general revenue]. Gulf Bend Center

restricted its services to the ‘acute’ population. People had to present with a Global Assessment Functioning index of 50 or less.

o Transfer state oversight to the community level. Centers were ‘designated’ as local authorities. Centers were required to conduct monitoring activities internally, at a cost.

2000 to current. The state had another shortfall. The strategy, restrict access to the seriously and persistently mentally ill population.

In less than a decade, the Center went from serving 100% of mental health diagnosis to treating only 5.8%. During this time, funding was eliminated for all social support [non medical] services. Performance was evaluated on the number of unduplicated persons served, rather than improved functioning. We abandoned our mission in practice; however we continued to hold ourselves out as serving the ‘community’.

Identity CrisisGulf Bend lost sight of its purpose/mission; our identity, existence and business practice was defined by one contract, the states’ performance contract.

The TruthGulf Bend Center is and always has been a Community Center, statutorily defined in the health and safety code (534.001). We are a community center first. We contract with payers as a provider. We can deliver any behavioral health service to any diagnostic population.

Back to the MissionAs a nonprofit, we are charged with serving a broader community good/benefit. Restricting our business practices and more importantly restricting our business practice to meeting the need of any single payer prohibits us from achieving our mission. The first step we must take to get “Back to the Mission” is developing/implementing sustainable mission focused business practices. This is a big step. We must make a paradigm shift; we are a healthcare business with a mission.

Profit is not a bad word nor does pursuing an entity level profit diminish our character or integrity as a nonprofit organization. Quite the contrary; developing profit centers and pursuing a margin of return, will ensure the broader community need is met and that our Center will thrive in the new health care arena.

Our strategy is develop service lines that are profitable, allowing us to finance charitable services beyond the states funded capacity.

Mission

State/Core Services

Commercial MarketMargin