Texas: Clinic to Merge With The Assistance Fund

The Montrose Clinic and The Assistance Fund (TAF) recently announced they are merging to create a new nonprofit consisting of an operating arm that provides health services and an endowment to work on long-term fundraising goals.

Houston-based TAF provides health insurance and subsidizes medication to mostly unemployed, uninsured HIV/AIDS patients in Harris and surrounding counties. Montrose Clinic is a United Way agency that provides health care to more than 15,000 mostly indigent, uninsured patients annually - some 70 percent of whom are HIV-positive. It also offers primary HIV care, and operates an STD clinic and a women's clinic.

Boards for the organizations said the merger will allow for more secure funding and enhanced services. Montrose and TAF Executive Directors Katy Caldwell and Ken Malone also cited decreased federal and state funding for HIV/AIDS services as a compelling factor for merging. Last year, Montrose lost 7 percent of its Ryan White CARE Act funding, and TAF lost 3 percent.

During the merger, which the boards expect will be "done and legal" by Oct. 3, clients will continue to receive services from each of the organizations, Caldwell and Malone said. None of the clinic's 70 full-time employees or TAF's 12 workers will lose their jobs in the merger, they said. It will take about a year to fully integrate the two, and the as yet unnamed entity will then move into one office building, said Malone.

"We want people to be able to get their insurance eligibility, their primary care, and their medication all in one place," said Caldwell. "This is a good deal," said Malone, who will become COO of the new entity. "The reaction we've heard from clients and community members has been very positive."

Back to other news for September 7, 2005