ORANGE, Calif. (March 18, 2024) — The CalOptima Health Board of Directors has approved Healthcare in Action and the Celebrating Life Health Center to deliver essential medical services for the unhoused through CalOptima Health’s expanded Street Medicine Program in Anaheim and Costa Mesa.
Healthcare in Action will provide services for Anaheim and Celebrating Life Health Center will serve Costa Mesa. This expansion comes about a year after the Street Medicine Program launched in April 2023 in Garden Grove, where nearly 200 unhoused residents have received coordinated health care, behavioral health and social services.
Long Beach-based Healthcare in Action, a member of the SCAN Group, is a medical group that serves patients experiencing homelessness by contracting with Medicare and Medi-Cal health plans as well as hospitals and health systems.
Celebrating Life Health Center is a Mission Viejo-based nonprofit organization with a clinic in Costa Mesa committed to serving and advocating for low-income and underserved individuals residing in Orange County.
Street Medicine plays a key role in CalOptima Health’s comprehensive strategy to address homelessness by bringing urgent and primary care to the streets. The program provides medical, behavioral and social services to unhoused people, preventing the progression of untreated health conditions while seeking to reduce unnecessary emergency department visits and increase access to permanent housing.
“The fundamental idea behind Street Medicine is to meet individuals experiencing homelessness on their own terms and where they are,” said Kelly Bruno-Nelson, MSW, Executive Director of
Medi-Cal/CalAIM. “With the addition of these new communities and the selection of health care providers to service them, CalOptima Health will bring life-changing care to hundreds more and support them in becoming housed as the foundation of good health.”
The medical groups were selected at the conclusion of a rigorous request for proposal process. The CalOptima Board of Directors approved the selection at its March 7 Board meeting.
About CalOptima Health
A county organized health system, CalOptima Health provides quality health care coverage for low-income children, adults, seniors and people with disabilities in Orange County, California. CalOptima Health’s mission is to serve member health with excellence and dignity, respecting the value and needs of each person. CalOptima Health serves nearly 935,000 members with a network of more than 10,500 primary care doctors and specialists and 39 acute and rehab hospitals.
