Date
May 15, 2018
Location
NYHealth
NYC Health + Hospitals (H +H) is the largest public health care system in the United States, providing inpatient, outpatient, and home-based services to more than 1 million New Yorkers every year in more than 70 locations across the City’s five boroughs. Its new President and CEO, Dr. Mitchell Katz, is committed to improving the efficiency and quality of care the system delivers and eliminating its substantial budget deficit. Most recently, Dr. Katz was the Director of the Los Angeles County Health Agency, where he turned a $250 million budget deficit into a $560 million surplus in six years.
Is a similar turnaround possible in New York City? H+H faces enormous challenges: 70% of its patients are uninsured or covered by Medicaid, at a time when federal reimbursements for safety-net hospitals are decreasing. An expected budget deficit of $1.8 billion looms in 2020. Tough choices lie ahead when it comes to reducing costs and increasing revenue, as cuts to services and personnel have historically been political hot potatoes in New York. Dr. Katz has pledged to boost primary care and improve the quality, timeliness, and efficiency of care at H+H to spur revenue, but will it be enough?
On May 15, 2018, NYHealth hosted a conversation with Dr. Katz to learn more about his vision and plans for NYC Health + Hospitals. Dr. Katz spoke about a range of issues: the value of a mission-focused health care workforce, opportunities to expand health insurance coverage among H+H’s patient population, strategies to address the opioid epidemic, and ways to make hospital care more patient-centered.