A federally qualified health center is a clinic that receives federal funding on the condition that it serve a designated community and charge patients on a sliding scale based on household income and size. People usually call them community health centers.
The funding condition is the whole point, and it is what separates them from a clinic that happens to be inexpensive. An FQHC does not decide case by case whether you look like you need help. It has a published fee policy with income bands, and if you are under a band, that is what you pay.
Three consequences follow, and each one is the opposite of what people expect.
Being uninsured is routine, not exceptional. These are the clinics built for it.
Being paid in cash does not disqualify you. There is a self-declaration process for income when there are no pay stubs, because a center that refused cash-paid workers would be failing at its own purpose.
The scale usually reaches past the visit. Labs drawn on site, and often medications through the center’s pharmacy arrangements, fall under the same policy. That is the real advantage over paying a private practice piecemeal, where the visit, the lab and the prescription are three separate transactions from three companies.
In New York: immigration status is not a condition of being seen, and many centers have behavioral health and dental on site, which matters because both are otherwise among the hardest things to reach without coverage. In some neighborhoods this layer is not a fallback but the main system: East New York and Crown Heights have among the heaviest concentrations in the city.
Centers participating in the 340B federal drug pricing program can dispense to their own patients at deeply discounted prices, which for someone on an expensive ongoing medication changes the arithmetic permanently rather than one fill at a time.
Search by ZIP at findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov. The phrase that applies the policy is: “I’d like to be seen on the sliding fee scale. What do you need from me to apply it?”
Also called: FQHC, community health center, health center. Full guide: Getting care without insurance in New York.
More in Glossary of health coverage and billing terms
- Managed Long Term Care (MLTC) — The plan that authorizes and pays for long-term home care in New York. It is the payer, not the care itself.
- Dual eligible — Having Medicare and Medicaid at the same time, which covers premiums, cost sharing and the long-term care Medicare does not.
- Parity (mental health parity) — The rule that a health plan may not make mental health and substance use care harder or costlier to get than comparable medical care.
This page explains how the system works. It is not medical advice. More.