Thomas Breen photo
Primary care movers (from right): YNHH VP Jennifer Wilcox, Fair Haven Health CEO Suzanne Lagarde, YNHH VP Cynthia Sparer, Hill Health CEO Michael Taylor, Yale School of Medicine Associate Dean Stephen Huot.
The new primary consortium site at 150 Sargent Dr.
State regulators have approved, with conditions, Yale New Haven Hospital’s months-long bid to relocate its three primary care centers from downtown and Hamden to a single building on Long Wharf.
The state Office of Health Strategy (OHS) announced that decision Friday afternoon in an email press release about the certificate of need (CON) required for the hospital to close its current primary care services and move them to 150 Sargent Dr.
This regulatory approval, which the state has deliberated over since last November, paves the way for the New Haven Primary Care Consortium (NHPCC), a new venture spearheaded by the hospital in collaboration with Fair Haven Community Health Care, and the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center.
The roughly 25,000 mostly low-income patients who currently receive primary-care services every year at YNHH’s St. Raphael’s, York Street, and Hamden campuses will now have to go to Long Wharf to visit their doctors once the refurbished primary care center opens in the late summer of 2020.
Click here to download a copy of the agreed settlement.
OHS is the state regulatory agency responsible for signing off on such major state healthcare actions, and identifies its primary mission on its website as “to implement comprehensive, data driven strategies that promote equal access to high quality health care, control costs and ensure better health for the people of Connecticut.”
OHS’s decision in support of the primary care relocation came with several conditions meant to address some of the vocal public criticism about Long Wharf’s relative inaccessibility to people without cars, and to the implications of YNHH partnering with two federally qualified health care centers that, under the Trump Administration, are formally barred from referring patients to abortion care providers if they want to keep receiving Title X funds.
“Preserving access to healthcare was a key consideration in this application,” OHS Executive Director Vicki Veltri is quoted as saying in the press release, “particularly related to women’s reproductive healthcare and how the location of the new facility impacts patient travel times. OHS was deliberate in efforts to condition the application so that women’s healthcare was not compromised by the transition. We also carefully considered how to ease transportation burdens on patients. Focused reproductive healthcare outreach, a coordinated ADA-compliant transportation strategy, and several years of monitoring are among the conditions placed on this approval to safeguard healthcare access for all residents.”
Some of those conditions, which are reproduced verbatim from the press release here and listed in full below, include:
• YNHH will provide free transportation services to current primary care patients who live within 10 miles of Sargent Drive, whose trip to Sargent Drive would take them 40 minutes or more on public transit, and who do not have access to a private vehicle.
• YNHH will contract with Coordinated Transportation Solutions, Uber, and Milford Transit District to transport patients to /from the new primary care location and to/from YNHH campus locations for services. Coordinated Transportation Solutions and Milford Transit vehicles will be Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.
• YNHH will submit to OHS an outreach plan to provide education and information to patients related to reproductive healthcare and pregnancy termination.
• Family planning outreach and education services will continue for at least three years after the transition.
• YNHH will contribute $10,000 per year for three years to a patient assistance fund for low-income and hardship patients. Sliding scale fees and assistance to low-income patients are currently part of the community health centers’ policies and will stay in effect.
“The transition of services from YNHH to the two community health centers is expected to happen in late summer of 2020,” the press release reads, “and includes shifting some primary care providers from YNHH to the centers. Cornell Scott-Hill Health and Fair Haven Community Health have a combined 26 locations and 11 school-based health centers in the region. They will continue to provide same day appointments.”
Read the full press release from the state Office of Health Strategy below.
(HARTFORD, CT) – The Connecticut Office of Health Strategy (OHS) announced today that it has approved, with conditions to ensure healthcare access, the Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) Certificate of Need application to terminate outpatient primary care services. The New Haven Primary Care Consortium, a newly-established partnership between Yale New Haven Hospital, the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, and Fair Haven Community Health Center, will provide continued access to primary care services for the 25,000 residents currently served by YNHH. Cornell Scott-Hill Health and Fair Haven Community Health, both federally-qualified health centers, will lease new office space from YNHH at 150 Sargent Drive in New Haven, within two miles of the YNHH York Street and St. Raphael campuses.
OHS Executive Director Vicki Veltri said, “Preserving access to healthcare was a key consideration in this application — particularly related to women’s reproductive healthcare and how the location of the new facility impacts patient travel times. OHS was deliberate in efforts to condition the application so that women’s healthcare was not compromised by the transition. We also carefully considered how to ease transportation burdens on patients. Focused reproductive healthcare outreach, a coordinated ADA-compliant transportation strategy, and several years of monitoring are among the conditions placed on this approval to safeguard healthcare access for all residents.”
OHS conditions include:
• YNHH will provide free transportation services to current primary care patients who live within 10 miles of Sargent Drive, whose trip to Sargent Drive would take them 40 minutes or more on public transit, and who do not have access to a private vehicle.
• YNHH will contract with Coordinated Transportation Solutions, Uber, and Milford Transit District to transport patients to /from the new primary care location and to/from YNHH campus locations for services. Coordinated Transportation Solutions and Milford Transit vehicles will be Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.
• Providers will coordinate medical transportation program enrollment for Medicaid patients and those with special transportation needs.
• YNHH will retain an independent consultant to recommend transportation service improvements, track transportation service program standards, and submit detailed reports on transportation options to OHS twice yearly for three years.
• YNHH will identify transportation barriers and make recommendations for improvements in a report submitted to OHS once a year for three years.
Under federal law, health centers that receive Title X funding, including the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and Fair Haven Community Health, are restricted from providing abortion services; must be financially and physically separate from providers who perform pregnancy termination; and may only provide non-directive counseling related to abortion for family planning.
To protect women’s access to a full complement of reproductive healthcare:
• YNHH will submit to OHS an outreach plan to provide education and information to patients related to reproductive healthcare and pregnancy termination.
• Family planning outreach and education services will continue for at least three years after the transition.
• Comprehensive reproductive healthcare including abortion services will continue to be available at the YNHH York Street offices.
In addition:
• OHS will receive reports for three years to monitor and address outstanding pharmacy, financial, and transportation complaints.
• YNHH will contribute $10,000 per year for three years to a patient assistance fund for low-income and hardship patients. Sliding scale fees and assistance to low-income patients are currently part of the community health centers’ policies and will stay in effect.
The transition of services from YNHH to the two community health centers is expected to happen in late summer of 2020 and includes shifting some primary care providers from YNHH to the centers. Cornell Scott-Hill Health and Fair Haven Community Health have a combined 26 locations and 11 school-based health centers in the region. They will continue to provide same day appointments.
Pursuant to multiple sections of the General Statutes, OHS leads the Health Systems Planning Unit that administers the Certificate of Need program—a regulatory responsibility to promote statewide health facility and service development and monitor the impact of provider acquisitions and consolidations on the communities they serve.
All documents related to this CON application can be found in the OHS CON portal under Docket # 18 – 32231. Click on the blue filter icon next to ‘docket number’, type 32231 in the first box, then click ‘filter’.
Previous articles about the proposed New Haven Primary Care Consortium:
• Plan Reimagines Primary Care For Poor
• Primary Plan’s Obstacle: Broken Bus System
• Primary Care Move Delayed To 2020
• Flood-Proofing Promised For Primary Care Site
• YNHH Reshuffles St. Ray’s Campus
• Primary Care Plan: Shuttle Out, Uber In
• Farwell Questions Primary Care Move’s Impact On Poor
• West River Questions Primary Care Move
• Harp Backs Primary Care Move
• Primary Care Hub Wins Key City Sign Off
Below are Facebook Live videos of portions of last fall’s public hearing, and of an interview earlier this year with Lagarde and Taylor on WNHH’s “Dateline New Haven.”
It remains to be seen whether the Long Wharf site will be equally accessible for the patients compared to their previous clinic sites. I thought these federally funded clinics were supposed to be housed where people live. No one lives on Long Whirf.