Hospital Merger Talks Continue and Public Forum Announced

The Syracuse Post-Standard related that Community General Hospital continued to lose money and patients last year, underscoring concerns about its ability to survive unless it is taken over by Upstate Medical University.
Community lost about $2 million in 2010, the fifth consecutive year of operating losses, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Services.

The number of inpatients also dropped for the fourth year in a row, the report said. The hospital’s deteriorating financial health prompted Moody’s to downgrade Community’s bond rating on Dec. 23 from B2 to Caa1, which means the agency considers Community’s ability to repay its debt very weak.

The nonprofit 306-bed hospital on Onondaga Hill has been in merger talks with Upstate since May. Upstate’s goal is to have a purchase agreement in place by July 1. Without a takeover by Upstate, Community may not survive, said Dr. John McCabe, chief executive officer of Upstate University Hospital.

“If we weren’t doing this, 1,100 jobs might disappear from the Syracuse community,” McCabe said.

Upstate, part of the State University of New York, is an academic medical center with a 409-bed teaching hospital and colleges of medicine, nursing, health-related professions and graduate studies. Upstate’s hospital is full and it wants more beds so it can expand enrollment in its schools, provide more clinical training sites for students and at the same time preserve services at Community.

“This is not a hospital acquiring a hospital, it’s a university acquiring a hospital,” McCabe said. “This is designed to expand our educational and research footprint so we can train more primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants and other health professionals.”
Community is the smallest of Syracuse’s four acute care hospitals serving the general public. Inpatient volume at Community between January and November of 2010 dropped 9.2 percent compared to the same 11-month period of 2009, according to the Hospital Executive Council, a local hospital planning agency. That decline came while overall inpatient volume at the city’s four hospitals grew 5.7 percent.

The number of inpatients dropped because some older doctors have left and not been replaced by their medical groups, said Tom Quinn, Community’s president and chief executive officer. At the same time, Community is facing increased competition from other hospitals and outpatient surgery centers, he said. Those same factors were behind Community’s decision to become part of a larger hospital system, he said.

“It’s not a place that’s flailing or failing,” Quinn said. “I think we have shown ourselves to be very resilient.”

The hospital has made incremental improvements that have led to growth in orthopedics, rehabilitation and some other services, Quinn said. It also has the lowest rate of inpatient complications of any hospital in the city, according to Ron Lagoe, executive director of the Hospital Executive Council.

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Public Forum Offered
A public forum on the proposed Upstate-Community General merger will take place 6 p.m. Jan. 20 at the CNY Philanthropy Center, 431 E. Fayette St., Syracuse. It will feature presentations by Dr. John McCabe, CEO of Upstate University Hospital, and Tom Quinn, president and CEO of Community General. A period for public comment, questions and discussion will follow the presentation. The forum will be co-hosted by the Central New York Health Systems Agency and the Health Advancement Collaborative of Central New York.

Online: Upstate and Community General have created a website with information about the proposed merger: www.cgh-upstate.org