CenCal Health works to expand healthcare services for local residents through partnerships and implementation of CalAIM

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One-third of Santa Barbara County residents are members of CenCal Health. In San Luis Obispo County, 1 in 4 residents use the plan.

CenCal Health, the nonprofit that contracts with the state to administer Medi-Cal benefits to residents in the region, has been implementing an “ambitious” initiative to streamline services, advance health equity, and promote whole-person care, all to improve health outcomes, according to CenCal CEO Marina Owen.

That initiative—called CalAIM, for California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal—has enhanced CenCal Health’s impact, she said.  

“It just allowed us to try new things and to try to innovate in different ways,” Owen said. “We’ve been doing things the same way for a while in Medi-Cal. The results we received were great for families and children but perhaps didn’t go as far as needed for some of these populations.”

CenCal presented its 2025 Community Report to its board of directors in March, which also highlighted new collaborations with health care providers and community partners. 

In its 2022-25 Strategic Plan, CenCal Health laid out four main goals: creating and maintaining community partnerships, advancing quality and equity of care for everyone, expanding its role and reach in the community, and enhancing efficiency and impact. Owen said that the organization has met all of its goals for the first two years of the plan and is on track to meet the remaining ones by the end of 2025. 

“I’m most excited about partnerships we’ve built and developed because we’ve really created a health improvement partnership here locally on the Central Coast,” she said. “To have, between the two counties, 70 partners working together to improve the health and well-being of our community is really powerful, and I think only good things can come from that. We’re stronger together.”

Owen highlighted key partnerships, including with housing and homelessness organizations like 5Cities Homeless Coalition and Good Samaritan Shelter, as well as with the public health departments in the two counties CenCal Health serves. According to Owen, establishing partnerships has been essential for implementing CalAIM programs and increasing the capacity of care so the organization can improve wellness for more people. 

“When we all work together behind the scenes, we can make things easier for people accessing care,” Owen said. “I’d say collaboration is really practical. While it feels intangible, it’s absolutely necessary to make sure that people don’t fall through the cracks.”

Good Samaritan Shelter Executive Director Sylvia Barnard explained that CalAIM includes community support services such as enhanced care management, sobering centers, recuperative care, housing navigation, and housing retention. As a result of its partnership with CenCal Health, more individuals experiencing homelessness were able to access care, and more people stayed housed. 

“I want to thank CenCal,” Barnard said. “They’ve really been a leader in both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties in implementing CalAIM, and we’re just so grateful that we have them as a strong partner and look forward to continuing to provide CalAIM support services.”

Seeing people get better because of the enhanced care they provide keeps Barnard and the Good Samaritan Shelter motivated to continue their efforts of transforming the lives of people experiencing homelessness. 

“We’ve met them in the encampments and have them come through our doors and get the enhanced services and community supports,” Barnard said. “And then we see them move on to housing, where they’re just a completely different person and getting the supports and their needs met so that they can stabilize well in housing.”

In addition to establishing partnerships to expand services for unhoused individuals, CenCal Health also started working with local education agencies to provide enhanced mental health care to young students. Owen revealed that the organization has reached 40,000 K-12 students with its transformed mental health services and has screened 25,000 students for behavioral health. 

“That’s a lot of students screened, and we saw at least 1,000 being enrolled in programs, really just for some extra help,” Owen said. “Teachers were trained to better address students’ needs so that we didn’t see students not graduate and didn’t see students have to transition out of their typical schools and go to a correctional school or facility.” 

In March, CenCal Health kicked off planning for its next strategic plan. Owen said that for this new plan, the team will work to implement new CalAIM programs as they arrive, but she noted a need to consider an environment of uncertainty when it comes to state and federal funding under the Trump administration. 

“The biggest challenge is going to be sustainability,” she said. “With the budget challenges in Sacramento, and with the federal government looking to reduce funding to Medicaid, we are really wanting to maintain what we’ve built and keep working on helping people.”

Staff Writer Emma Montalbano can be reached at emontalbano@newtimesslo.com.

This article appears in Apr 3-13, 2025.