Northeast Business Group on Health

Jun 27, 2023

Plus: Weill Cornell, Columbia, SUNY Downstate get nearly $10M to study poverty-driven cancer disparities Companies fall short of needed mental health offerings for employees, survey finds More New York might unexpectedly be on the hook to pay an additional $1.3 billion in health care worker bonuses, according to recent initial guidance from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But as the state continues to negotiate with the federal government, experts wonder whether the funding has and will deliver on its goal to improve industry retention. The state’s fiscal 2023 executive budget originally allocated $1.3 billion for the Health Care and Mental Hygiene Worker Bonus Program, which awards eligible health care professionals up to $3,000 each. The offer was made by the state with the expectation that it would get approval for the federal government to match that amount because the money would be counted as a Medicaid expenditure, said Jason Gough, a representative from the state budget department. The state has already paid about $1.6 billion in bonuses to 613,000 workers, he added. However, CMS provided initial guidance in April that the federal government is unlikely to provide matching funds for the bonuses paid to date, he said, meaning the state will need to come up with the money instead–or $2.6 billion total. The state’s recently-released enacted budget financial plan has been updated to reflect the full cost of the program, taking the CMS guidance into account. However, Gough said, the agency’s guidance is only an initial step, and New York “continues to negotiate with CMS to find an acceptable process for documentation and claiming a federal share.” As negotiations continue, the state plans to continue paying future bonuses, Gough said. However, some experts wonder whether the bonus program deserves such a large price tag in the first place. Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s senior fellow for health policy, said he thinks it’s odd for the state to treat the bonus program as a Medicaid expenditure because the money doesn’t fund patient care directly. Additionally, he questioned if bonuses would truly help health systems around the state that are currently dealing with a workforce crisis because they are one-time payments. “Let's say you're a nurse and you hang on to your job for another six months because there's a bonus at the end. If your job is really that unpleasant, or it's just not working for you, you're not going to stay because of that one-time payment,” he said. “If you asked me what would be the best way to spend $1.3 billion on health care, I don't think health bonuses would be anywhere near the top of my list.” Meanwhile, some health care leaders say the bonuses are at least in part helping with retention. Over time, the state has widened eligibility for bonuses to different types of workers. Medical residents and fellows, mental hygiene workers, nurses and facility support staff are all eligible. Anthony Pellicano, the chief human resources officer at Catholic Health on Long Island, said the bonuses are just one part of the system’s recruitment and retention efforts. However, they have contributed to improved retention and staff received them “very favorably.” Before the pandemic hit, the system saw an average turnover rate of about 13%, he said. Turnover peaked at 18% in 2021. Since the bonuses went into effect, along with other initiatives, turnover has dropped to 13% across all positions, Pellicano said. Nurse turnover is typically higher than for other positions, he added. Before Covid, it hovered around 14%; rates jumped to more than 19% at the height of the pandemic and have now returned to 14%. However, in Catholic Health’s case, bonuses weren’t the only retention method deployed. The health system also gave workers market rate adjustments, created an enhanced preceptorship program to improve training for new nurses and launched an emotional support program for staff during the pandemic, Pellicano said. Now that retention has improved, he added, it could help lessen employees’ workloads and lead to better quality care. Representatives from Mount Sinai, Northwell, New York City Health + Hospitals and member hospitals from the Greater New York Hospital Association declined to speak for this story about whether the bonuses have improved retention. For Hammond, the question of where the state could find the money to allocate an additional $1.3 billion for the program lingers. Gough did not provide a timeline for when the state will finalize negotiations with the federal government, but said future bonus payments are “ongoing.” —Jacqueline Neber Mount Sinai Hospital files plans to build $205M Upper East Side cancer treatment facility Mount Sinai Hospital submitted plans to build a $205 million cancer hospital on the Upper East Side, stating that the facility will provide advanced cancer care and access to clinical trials. The hospital requested approval to reconstruct an old building on its campus that will become the Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Hospital, according to a certificate of need filing submitted to the Department of Health last week. The new hospital, which will be located at 1440 Madison Ave., is due to open in 2027, Mount Sinai said in a release. The health system plans to reconstruct the Klingenstein Clinical Center, renovate five existing floors and update the building exterior. Mount Sinai Hospital will convert and decertify physical medicine and rehabilitation beds into medical-surgical and intensive care unit beds. Although this will increase Mount Sinai’s medical-surgical and ICU hospital beds, it will reduce the overall certified bed count by 40. The facility will consist of four floors with 18 private rooms on each floor, the health system said in a release. Construction will take nearly three years to complete. Mount Sinai Hospital received a $60 million donation  from the Tisch family in March to build the new cancer facility. The hospital will pay for the project in cash, the organization said. Mount Sinai has 300,000 ambulatory visits and 10,000 hospital visits among cancer patients each year, Dr. Luis Isola, medical director of the Mount Sinai Cancer Network, said in a statement about the new facility. Mount Sinai Hospital declined to comment on this story. Mount Sinai Hospital is a part of the Mount Sinai Health System, which has eight hospitals in the New York metropolitan area.—Amanda D’Ambrosio Weill Cornell, Columbia, SUNY Downstate get nearly $10M to study poverty-driven cancer disparities Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and School of Nursing, and SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University have received a five-year, $9.8 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study persistent poverty-driven disparities in cancer diagnoses, the schools announced Monday. The researchers will develop a specialized research center and two projects to study cancer in city neighborhoods that experience persistent poverty, meaning at least 30% of the population has lived below the federal poverty line for at least three decades, said Dr. Erica Phillips, the associate director for community outreach and engagement of the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell. The neighborhoods include the South Bronx, North-Central Brooklyn, Washington Heights and Western Queens. Communities with persistent poverty tend to see higher rates of cancer, and cancer is the leading cause of premature mortality in the city, according to a release on the study. Phillips will lead the first project, which will test a six-week cancer education and social justice curriculum in 10 schools. The program will aim to make the science of cancer relatable for kids and encourage them to influence others to change risky behaviors, such as smoking tobacco, Phillips said. “The curriculum is also about really changing and making the science more relatable to real life and having students look at what they're learning as a pathway to a [potential science, technology, engineering or math career] down the line,” she said. “You are also potentially changing their lifelong earnings, which is important in terms of breaking that multigenerational poverty.” Dr. Phoenix Matthews of the Columbia School of Nursing will lead the second project, implementing a tobacco cessation trial. His team will work with safety-net health care clinics in the city to increase awareness of treatments the New York State Tobacco Quitline offers. The grant will continue to fund smaller projects over the course of the next five years, Phillips added, with the goal of addressing social determinants of health to reduce cancer incidence rates. The National Cancer Institute funded five centers with grants for such projects; this collaboration is the only funded center in the Northeast. The National Cancer Institute is part of the National Institutes of Health. —J.N. Companies fall short of needed mental health offerings for employees, survey finds While employers and health organizations in the northeast region say they promote positive work qualities such as a flexible environment and work-life balance, many are still falling short of meeting the mental health needs of their workforce, according to a survey released Monday. Overall, 52% of employers said they always or usually provide easily accessible information about mental health resources to their employees through a range of platforms, according to a survey conducted by the Northeast Business Group on Health, a coalition that focuses on employer health benefits issues. Additionally, 26% of companies do not identify needs or test the effectiveness of their mental health programs, and 29% do not incorporate messaging campaigns through social media or internal marketing campaigns into their mental health strategy, the survey found. The Northeast Business Group on Health conducted its Well Gauge survey to understand how employers are supporting a mental well-being culture. More than 140 corporations who are members of the coalition and are based in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut responded to the survey. Three-quarters of employers said that they always or usually support a healthy work-life balance and 85% support a flexible work environment. Amy Tippett-Stangler, senior vice president leading the organization’s mental health initiatives at NEBGH, said that businesses need to improve on identifying mental health needs and testing the effectiveness of current mental health programs. “I do think doing a pulse check against small targeted surveys on the very specific benefits that they're offering, on a fairly frequent basis, would go a long way,” Tippett-Stangler said. She added that awareness campaigns and efforts to ensure mental health is a part of the core business model would also further support workforce needs. The Northeast Business Group on Health, based in Midtown, has employer and purchaser members that cover 8 million lives in the U.S. and 12 million across the globe.—A.D. Loading… AT A GLANCE SAFE HAVEN: The city’s Abortion Access Hub has served about 2,000 people since November, Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision one year ago, the city aims to be a continual safe haven for patients seeking an abortion by connecting people to resources and providing free medication abortion at sexual health clinics. About 400 people who have called the Abortion Access Hub’s hotline reported living out of state and about a quarter live in Texas, the mayor’s office reports. AFFIRMING LEGISLATION: Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation Sunday to establish New York as a safe haven for LGBTQ+ individuals, including S.2475-B, which will prohibit considering laws from other states that would let kids be removed from their parents in custody cases where parents allow their kids to receive gender-affirming care. S-993-A requires the state Office of Addiction Supports and Services to assure that New Yorkers with substance use disorder can seek treatment based on their gender identity. Hochul also signed three more pieces of legislation that aim to remove outdated and stigmatizing language from state law and call for state agencies to use gender-neutral terms on their websites. TURNAROUND TIME: The city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has achieved a 30-day or less turnaround time for testing gun crime evidence about one year after launching the DNA Gun Crimes Unit, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday. OCME has used a $2.5 million investment to hire and train 24 forensic scientists to staff the unit, as well as upgrade lab management software and buy new equipment. Processing evidence faster allows cases to move through the criminal justice system faster and increase community safety, according to the mayor’s office. WHO'S NEWS: The "Who's News" portion of "At a Glance" is available online at  this link  and in the Health Pulse newsletter. "Who's News" is a daily update of career transitions in the local health care industry. For more information on submitting a listing, reach out to Debora Stein:  [email protected] . CONTACT US: Have a tip about news happening in the local health care industry? Want to provide feedback about our coverage? Contact the Health Pulse team at [email protected]