Spotlight On: Scot McCray, CEO, Amplify Health
Key points:
- • Amplify Health is expanding access through clinics, mobile care, and employer partnerships.
- • Primary care is becoming increasingly vital to the region’s economic prosperity.
- • Diversification and partnerships are helping Amplify navigate funding pressures and sustain growth.
August 2026 — Amplify Health, a federally qualified health center (FQHC) with more than five decades of history in Wake and Franklin counties, is redefining what it means to be a safety net provider in a fast-changing healthcare landscape. In an interview with Invest:, CEO Scot McCray shared how the organization has grown from five to 14 locations, hired more than 100 new employees in 18 months and expanded into mobile, school-based and employer-focused services. “That kind of flexibility is essential if we’re serious about closing gaps in access,” said McCray.
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Over the past year, what changes are you most proud of at Amplify Health, and where have you seen the greatest impact on patient outcomes?
Over the last year, the thing I’m most proud of is our adaptability. Healthcare has been changing constantly for at least a quarter of a century — the rise of HMOs and MCOs, the shift to value-based care, and a sustained focus on the escalating cost of care. In all of that, primary care has emerged as the primary driver of cost containment, and that’s the space we occupy as a FQHC.
Amplify Health has 53 years of history in Wake and Franklin counties, and we serve roughly 30,000 patients today. Over the last five years, we’ve made a concerted effort to be nimble: to tighten up processes, improve efficiencies and build better systems, but always with one “wildly important goal” in mind — enhancing the patient experience. Everything routes back to four things: quality, compassionate care, access and affordability.
As an FQHC, we are required to see uninsured patients, but we are not a free and charitable clinic. We receive a small federal grant through HRSA under Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act, which is designed to make health centers the most affordable, accessible providers in communities and ensure we reflect the people we serve. Over time, that’s made us a household name, but we’re intentional about evolving from “last resort” to provider of choice and employer of choice.
That has meant a major cultural shift. We’ve focused on three pillars: structure, standardization and optimization. Those guide how we staff, how we design workflows, how we use data and how we grow. Since I arrived in 2021, right in the middle of COVID, Amplify has gone from five to 14 distinct locations across Wake and rural Franklin County.
Our square footage has expanded dramatically, but the real impact is that we’re now able to bring comprehensive primary care, behavioral health, dental and pharmacy closer to where people actually live and work. That’s where you see patient outcomes improve: fewer unnecessary ED visits, better chronic disease management and more patients who feel like they have a true medical home instead of a last-minute option.
As the region talks more about equitable economic development, how is Amplify making the case that community health is central to inclusive prosperity?
Healthcare is one of the major industries in North Carolina, and community health is a core part of any serious conversation about prosperity for all. If people are not well, it’s hard for them to be prosperous. When families are choosing between paying for food or going to the dentist, you’re going to see people fall off the prosperity track.
We approach this from several angles. One is workforce development. We have countless stories of people who joined us at a certain level of education or experience and, over time, have moved into leadership roles — practice administrators, operations leaders and nurse practitioners. We invest in our people, and as their careers progress, those investments ripple out into the community through higher wages, homeownership and spending at other local businesses.
Another angle is the direct economic impact. We manage over 75,000 square feet of medical and office space. In the last 18 months, we’ve hired more than 100 employees. When you add up salaries, contracting, and equipment purchases, we’re injecting about $50 million annually into the local economy. That’s a significant economic development engine on its own.
We’re also intentional about breaking community health out of the old box people sometimes put us in. We are not free and charitable, and we’re not “less than” any large private practice or hospital-based system. We see the same patients and the same clinical complexities. Our mission drives us, but so do business acumen and the ability to leverage supplemental funding and partnerships.
Our federal grant is only about 10% of our overall budget, and it is targeted to care for uninsured patients. In reality, we provide subsidized or free care at about two and a half times the value of that grant. That’s the scale of our impact in keeping uninsured and underinsured people connected to care, in the workforce and in a position to contribute to the regional economy.
Equitable economic development means investing in systems that serve everyone — including those facing social determinants like transportation, housing and food insecurity. Safety net and community health care is one of the best investments you can make if you want that prosperity to be truly shared.
How are you planning for stability in access and funding amid uncertainty?
The word we keep coming back to is diversification. Amplify was deeply entrenched in public health and primary care long before Medicaid expansion passed in North Carolina. When I arrived in 2021, we were on the cusp of that milestone after about 10 years of advocacy and lobbying by groups like Amplify and the North Carolina Community Health Center Association.
When expansion went live, we were ready to help newly eligible patients understand their options and use their coverage. We also knew that some people would lose coverage in the redetermination process or never qualify at all. For us, that’s business as usual. We exist to care for both complex and non-complex patients, whether they are insured or not.
What has been especially challenging recently is reimbursement. On October 1, 2025, our Medicaid PPS rate — the enhanced rate FQHCs receive to help offset the cost of uninsured care — was reduced by 3%. For Amplify, that’s a $600,000 to $650,000 hit to our bottom line this year. Additionally, close to 40% of our patients are uninsured. Many qualify for our sliding fee scale, but a significant group consists of hardworking business owners and employees who earn too much to qualify for discounts yet still lack insurance. We remain their best option, and we are not going to respond to reimbursement cuts by limiting access.
Instead, we’re doubling down on increasing access and encounters — making sure we can see more patients, follow up more consistently and still be the “best price at the pump” for comprehensive care. It has been tumultuous watching rapid policy changes at all levels of government. The big questions are: How do we sustain this? How do we keep providers at the bedside, keep doors open, and continue to grow where we’re needed?
Pharmacy policy is another critical piece. Pharmacy is one of the top drivers of healthcare costs. As an FQHC, we participate in 340B pricing, which allows us to provide lower-cost medications for uninsured patients and meaningful discounts for insured patients. That supports clinical adherence and outcomes, but it also provides financial upside that helps us fill the “donut holes” in coverage and funding. As legislation evolves, more of those donut holes appear. To use an old analogy, we’re starting to run out of fingers and thumbs to plug all the leaks.
That’s why we keep raising our hand as a partner to employers, payers and systems across the Triangle. Research and development is a huge part of this region’s healthcare story, but we need to elevate primary care to the same strategic level in regional planning. Without affordable, accessible primary care — and without collaborative payment mechanisms that recognize the value of models like Amplify — you’re going to see cost overruns, a less healthy workforce and, eventually, more hesitation around investing in this region. The next two to three years will be critical for reshaping how we fund and organize primary care as a regional asset.
How are you diversifying your services and partnerships to meet patients and employers where they are?
Our adaptability shows up not just in how we run clinics, but in how we think about our capabilities. As we’ve grown to 14 locations, we’ve built substantial back-office strength in billing, coding, finance, operations, and executive leadership. Those “managed services” used to be seen purely as internal functions. Now we view them as assets we can offer to smaller, privately owned practices that are struggling under administrative burdens and cost pressures.
Part of our vision of success is asking: Have we done enough to help those practices find the light at the end of the tunnel? In some cases, that means helping them stand up more efficient systems. In others, it may mean those practices becoming part of the Amplify system so that they can continue serving their communities under a more sustainable umbrella.
We’re also broadening how we deliver primary care for business partners. That includes exploring direct primary care relationships, occupational health services and employer-based access models that give companies more affordable options for their teams. We’ve entered into innovative contracts with county partners around early childhood education and behavioral screening, leveraging our behavioral health and therapeutic teams to support kids and families earlier in life.
Meeting people where they are is also literal. Our mobile health unit and mobile dental efforts take care to schools, playgrounds, subsidized housing communities, and employer parking lots. Corporate partners like Advance Auto Parts Foundation and Delta Dental have been instrumental in that work — supporting our Veterans Pathway to Better Healthcare initiative and helping us pilot mobile dentistry, even before we had a dedicated mobile dental unit. Right now, our teams load SUVs with equipment, drive to early childhood centers, set up on site, and deliver preventive dental care while children are already in their classrooms. That kind of flexibility is essential if we’re serious about closing gaps in access.
Looking ahead five years, what does success look like for Amplify Health?
Five years from now, I think about success in two big buckets. The first is whether we’ve done enough to sustain and strengthen the broader primary care ecosystem. Are we a true solution for smaller private practices that are trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel? Have we maintained and stood up those practices where possible, and welcomed them into the Amplify system when that was the best option? If there are practices on the edge of closing in markets where we operate, and we have not found a way to partner, then we still have work to do.
The second bucket is growth and integration. The last five years have already been one of the most compelling turnaround stories I’ve seen from a business perspective — days cash on hand, workforce development, square footage, number of sites, all moving in the right direction. We’ve grown from about 125 employees to more than 300, from five to 14 locations, and we’ve reinvested in smaller bedroom communities that previously had limited access.
I want our footprint and our history to be fully leveraged with hospital partners, research institutions, and workforce development organizations. We are the only fully funded Section 330 grantee in Wake and Franklin counties. That is a powerful asset for the region. There should be zero practices “on the edge of destruction,” as I like to say, when you have a proven partner like Amplify at the table.
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