Pact may save, expand Coram health center

Suffolk health officials have reached a tentative long-term agreement with an upstate medical group to operate the endangered Coram health center, which serves 6,800 low-income patients.

Hudson River HealthCare Inc., a Peekskill-based nonprofit, has negotiated a tentative deal that would allow Coram to stay open and add services including dental and mental health care. Health Commissioner James Tomarken estimates that the agreement would save the county $6.4 million over five years and $61.5 million by 2035.

The talks, spurred by the state, came after the county failed late last summer to get its Shirley, Patchogue and Brentwood clinics designated as federally qualified health centers. That would have made them eligible for increased Medicaid and Medicare funding and grants. Hudson River HealthCare, which operates 20 clinics and has 70,000 patients, has the federal designation.

Anne Nolon, HRH president and chief executive, said she believes the organization will be able to double the number of patients that Coram serves and expects to expand services with increased staff.

She said she hoped Coram could be a "model for an expansion of involvement of HRH on Long Island and we look forward to looking with the county at other sites."

Under the tentative agreement, Suffolk would make $650,000 annual payments to Hudson for five years.

Because federal rules require that Hudson not operate at a loss, Suffolk also would make five years of additional, gradually declining payments to offset the higher cost of Stony Brook University Hospital staff who work at the clinic, and the large number of patients -- nearly 40 percent -- without health insurance.

The payments would be $450,000 in the first year and $360,000 in the fifth.

Pressure for quick action comes because the 2012 operating budget includes only $2.1 million to run the Coram health center through April.

The county's network of eight health centers and two satellite facilities were first hit with $14 million in cuts last May after the state retroactively clawed back $20 million in aid for services.

But a partial reversal of the state cuts and action by county lawmakers blocked Coram's shutdown temporarily.