Offsetting Changes in Governmental Funding
The Ryan White CARE Act is the principal source of funding for the AIDS Care Group. Annual budgets have grown from $425,000 in 1998 to $2,480,000 in 2007. The legislation authorizing the Ryan White CARE Act was recently re-enacted for a period of three years. These next three years will see funding cuts of 5%. More cuts are expected at a time when more patients will be seeking care; and more of those patients will be without insurance. The AIDS Care Group is taking a long-term view of a predicament that will become palpable within the next three years. To off-set anticipated funding losses the AIDS Care Group is planning for the development of profit centers within its core of clinical and social services, including dental care, housing, and addictions counseling. With proper planning, networking, and marketing, the AIDS Care Group will introduce fee-for-services in each of its identified program-sustaining divisions. Such marketing will allow for the agency to meet the needs of the insured, and the low-income workers who are currently in need of care and services. With a business and marketing plan tailored to the contiguous communities in which the AIDS Care Group already provides services, the nature of the income stream to the agency will change dramatically, thereby establishing a group of services identified to sustain other services where funding will most likely be reduced by government support and grants.
