Cuts force closing of Coram health center

Faced with deep state aid cuts, the Levy administration has notified hospitals that run Suffolk's health centers that it will cut $13 million in funding as of July 1, a move that officials said will mean the closing of the Coram health center.

The closing would come after Levy aides late last month sent letters announcing a 40 percent cut in aid for the rest of the year to both the Dolan Family Health Center in Greenlawn and the Coram health center, run by Stony Brook University Hospital. Levy said the county's six other health centers will take cuts of about 6 percent.

"It's regrettable that Suffolk County's budget situation has led to the decision to close this facility," said Lauren Sheprow, Stony Brook spokeswoman. The university has managed the center since 1997 and has 42 employees, including four doctors.

Levy Budget Director Connie Corso said the Coram health center was notified late last month of a $1.4-million cut for the rest of the year. Negotiations to have Stony Brook run the center under its own license, which could have meant more state aid, broke down, forcing the county to seek a larger cut of $2.3 million.

For the Dolan center, officials say it means a cut of $1.1 million, leaving them with only $235,000 from the county for the last five months of the year. Terence Smith, Dolan's administrator, called the cuts "a catastrophe" and warned that the center would "have to severely curtail services" if funding is not restored. Dolan, run by Huntington Hospital, serves 9,000 patients a year.

However, Corso also warned the cuts may rise another 4 percent to 5 percent because the health department has been lax in getting health centers to make patients apply for Medicaid under a policy mandated by Levy six weeks ago.

The administration's action comes after the state late last year clawed back $20 million in aid already paid since 2008 for non-acute care for adult patients at health centers, aid to the medical examiner's office and funding for emergency services volunteers.

Corso said that so far, only 1,400 adults have applied for Medicaid since Levy imposed the new policy, and 85 percent were rejected. She could not say how many patients in all were allowed to receive services without making Medicaid applications. But she said there were seven days at the Brentwood center where no Medicaid applications were filed, and five at Shirley.

"It's a clear indication someone is falling down on the job," she said.