Conejo Health, founded in 2020, is a nonprofit dedicated to providing quality, equitable health services to Conejo Valley and other California communities. Guided by lived experience and community trust, the organization works to ensure that substance use disorder is met with compassion, care, and effective support — not stigma or deadly outcomes.
After launching a successful Enhanced Care Management (ECM) program in Ventura County, Conejo Health expanded its reach by embedding substance use navigators in hospital emergency departments, connecting Medi-Cal members with support at critical moments.
To continue scaling this work statewide, Conejo Health sought assistance through the Providing Access and Transforming Health (PATH) Technical Assistance (TA) Marketplace. They selected 43 Strategic Consulting (43SC) to strengthen the program’s operational, clinical, and financial infrastructure for long-term growth.
43SC partnered closely with Conejo Health leadership to evaluate scalability while ensuring high-quality services remained uninterrupted.
“The 43SC team was efficient, timely, and incredibly flexible,” said Conejo Health COO Ian Anderson. “They brought deep expertise and were also willing to get creative and work with what Conejo Health had to meet our needs; it was a 10/10 experience.”
Key contributions from 43SC included:
- Mapping and refining clinical and operational workflows to ensure consistent, high-quality experiences across managed care plan (MCP) contracts. Conejo Health’s Director of Clinical Services, Karen Rubenstein, noted that 43SC’s evaluation of the ECM assessment tool and development of a guide and matrix helped the team broaden and improve workflow review.
- Developing clear indicators to measure health outcomes, staff productivity, and overall program performance.
- Aligning program operations with a sustainable financial model to support expansion.
Through this collaboration, Conejo Health achieved significant progress, demonstrating the value of the TA Marketplace in helping organizations strengthen and grow essential services.
Results included:
- More than doubling ECM program enrollment, reaching 711 individuals served and counting.
- Expanding the team to 20 ECM Care Managers to meet increasing demand.
- Promoting six staff members to ECM supervisors and adding a new Program Coordinator.
- Implementing key performance indicators, incorporating tracking systems, and executing a quality performance agreement with Gold Coast Health Plan, Ventura County’s Medi-Cal MCP.
- Growing MCP partnerships, including advancing contract discussions with L.A. Care and submitting a letter of interest to Inland Empire Health Plan, to widen Conejo Health’s reach and serve more Medi-Cal members.
Would free coding and billing, client outreach and enrollment, program development, CalAIM implementation and monitoring, and other technical assistance services help your organization meet its Medi-Cal needs?