Leader of newly merged organization talks about its main goal: improve health outcomes in the Rochester-Finger Lakes region
By Mike Costanza
On Feb. 9, two nonprofits that have guided health care in the Finger Lakes region for decades announced their decision to combine. The Finger Lakes Performing Provider System and Common Ground Health-Rochester RHIO will become one on April 1.
FLPPS is a network of clinical and community-based providers that work together to transform and improve healthcare delivery and the health of the population. Common Ground Health-Rochester RHIO (Regional Health Information Organization) combines expertise in health research and planning with an electronic health information exchange that allows medical providers around the region to securely share patient information. Until a name is picked for the new organization, it will be referred to as the “combined entity.”
The two nonprofits’ boards jointly named FLPPS CEO Carol Tegas to head the combined entity.
Tegas, who has spent more than 35 years in healthcare and nonprofit strategic planning and governance, spoke to In Good Health about the new nonprofit, its challenges and the benefits it could provide to the 14 counties it serves in the Finger Lakes region. She is scheduled to start her new job on April 1, when the combined entity is expected to begin operating.
Q. What will the combined entity’s mission be, in general terms?
A. Essentially, what we aim to do overall is improve health outcomes in the region. The concept is to pursue and be successful at regional health improvement and regional health equity improvement because you can’t have one without the other. We want to address the systems, the policies, the current practices, all the barriers that prevent people from achieving their best health. Those include physical health, behavioral health and social factors, and looking at them from a whole-person perspective and trying to address those barriers, focusing on the more historically underserved populations.
Q. What drove the desire to combine the two nonprofits in order to meet these goals?
A. We have worked together across the three organizations for many years and it has long been recognized that our missions very much are aligned. In fact, over the years, as we worked together, I think that we’ve all recognized all along that there is a really strong synergy across the organizations. FLPPS being able to take advantage of the technical expertise and the data exchange expertise that Rochester RHIO has. Rochester RHIO has been able to take advantage of FLPPS’s footprint and we have very deep relationships with partner providers all across the region. Common Ground Health also has had the ability to take advantage of the FLPP’s what I call “implementation engine.” So, the boards came together and the stars aligned, frankly.
Q. What are some of the challenges the combined entity will face in the coming years?
A. The health disparities that have been plaguing our 14 counties have been going on for many years. They have been exacerbated after COVID-19 and heightened political and social pressures and so it’s very important and essential that we come together and join forces on identifying what those priority outcomes are that we need to improve. Another thing that has long been a challenge is the low reimbursement rates for providers, which also then leads to workforce challenges in the healthcare space. But the newest challenge for our region is the federal Medicaid changes that are going to happen very shortly around recertifying for Medicaid every six months and the new work requirements.
Q. Medicaid pays for free or low-cost health care for qualified low-income, middle class and elderly people. How might the combined entity save them from being dropped from that public health insurance program?
A. We have already started to bring together partners from across the region, who may or may not be working together, identifying in each county what the public health departments, the departments of human services are doing to educate the community and put in place mitigating tools and education so that people can avoid being dropped off. That will be informed by data and that will also require on-the-ground community engagement, data analytics, all of the things that we bring as strengths to the combined entity. We look at what the best practices are and try to replicate those and help the providers do that. Right now, for example, Monroe County is just doing an incredible amount of work that the rural community might need.
Q. Common Ground Health-Rochester RHIO and FLPPS combined have 111 employees. Is that going to remain the case once the combined entity opens its doors?
A. We’re not making any sudden moves and any moves that we would make moving forward would be a result of the changes in our programming and/or the changes in our funding, which all nonprofits have to consider.
For more information on the combined entity, go to https://flpps.org, https://commongroundhealth.org or https://rochesterrhio.org