Health care is an $8.3 billion industry in the mid-Hudson region.
Statewide, the Healthcare Association of New York State estimates hospitals and health systems sustain 686,610 jobs.
Multispecialty medical practice Westmed Medical Group in Westchester County is an example of those numbers in action ”“ but not without sober vigilance for the economic realities of doing business.
The medical group is on the cusp of fully opening its 83,000-square-foot office at Westchester”™s Ridge Hill in Yonkers. The location houses the group”™s third urgent care center; the others are in Rye and White Plains.
“This was built for expansion and for the aggregation of the closing of small offices,” said Simeon Schwartz, a physician and president of Westmed. “We started off with about 20 physicians in this catchment area and needed about 60 to fill the building. Once we announced we were building the building, more physicians came forward to join us and we hired a large number of physicians from training and new physicians into the practice.”
Schwartz gestured to bare walls with posters that will be replaced by video walls, presenting “health information, announcements and a little bit of branding.”
There will be an eyewear gallery to offset the administrative command center and H-shape of ultra-modern offices and exam rooms.
A conference room can comfortably fit 150, which Westmed will offer for community rental.
It”™s that concept of branding itself as a modern, progressive medical practice that keeps the group”™s growth pattern up.
“We currently take care of 200,000 patients as a primary care base, which means we provide care to one-third of every man, woman and child in central and southern Westchester,” Schwartz said. “Patients want one-stop shopping. They want coordinated. They want it to be efficient”¦ these centers are really the community hospital of the future. They essentially provide all of the services that a hospital would with the exception that they don”™t have inpatient beds and they don”™t handle the high-end acute care of the emergency room.”
Westmed is on-schedule to open a 30,000-square-foot comprehensive urgent care center in downtown New Rochelle this January; Schwartz estimated New Rochelle will cost $4 million to $5 million and the Ridge Hill center to cost $13 million to $15 million.
Development was made possible, in part, by federal stimulus money.
Westmed will receive $2.5 million out of a total of $8 million this year.
“The stimulus paid for this facility,” Schwartz said, of Yonkers. “We didn”™t need the money for EMR (electronic medical records) because we had invested in that over the last 10 years.”
Despite Westmed”™s testimony to the stimulus, there are countless concerns this physicians group shares with other health systems.
For one, the average age of physicians in the county grows older and older.
“Young physicians today do not want to come out of training and go into a solo or two-person practice,” Schwartz said. “I think physicians in this county need to come up with a business plan.”
Secondly, Medicare reimbursement rates have been flat for years.
“Health care reimbursement is a black box of agreements, rules and it”™s everything that it should not be,” Schwartz said. “Hospitals are not paid enough for their inpatient rates, so they need to make the money up for their outpatient rates. That causes all sorts of economic distortions.”
Bankruptcies and further consolidation could stem from poor volumes.
“If you look at the cost curves, health insurance and Medicare are beyond unsustainable,” Schwartz said. “Now, they”™re at a crisis. You”™re going to see a trend toward accountable-care organizations and value-based medicine. Providers are going to bear some of the responsibility for the cost of care. It”™s not a blank check and, ”˜Do whatever you want.”™ It”™s a reality.”
Congratulations to Westmed Medical Group. We are proud to have you as a neighbor.