United Memorial Medical Center

A proposed rule change from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) could provide Batavia’s United Memorial Medical Center (UMMC) with an additional $8.5 million every year.

Other hospitals across the state would benefit with their own additional funding. The overall proposal, currently under review, could bring an additional $967 million every year to hospitals in upstate New York.

The proposal, if implemented, would deliver a big win for UMMC, whose administrators have long complained Medicare has underfunded them.
The state has a shortage of doctors and nurses. With additional funding, UMMC and other hospitals could pay for more specialists from both professions.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced the proposal Friday. He said hospital systems across upstate New York have for many years received less than the national average for the services they provide.

Rochester Regional Health (RRH) oversees UMMC. In a statement, company officials predicted good things will come from this extra funding.

“We are optimistic that this proposed rule change would be an important first step on the federal level to address the years of Medicare underfunding we’ve experienced,” according to the statement.
“Currently, RRH receives around $0.84 for every $1 we spend on Medicare patients. Moving forward, we will keep on working with our federal, state and local partners in the fight for fair funding levels so we can continue to provide the high-quality health care this community needs and deserves.”

The Medicare Wage Index rate is used to determine how much money the U.S. government pays hospitals for labor costs when they treat Medicare patients. Each metro area is assigned a rate that dictates whether they receive more or less than the national average for health care labor costs.

Since the 1980s, Schumer said hospitals in the Albany area, for instance, have received only 86 percent of what the average hospital receives to account for wages, which does not reflect that city’s true wages and labor market.

“This means that hospitals from Buffalo to Albany and Watertown to Binghamton, big and small, in rural and urban areas, can get the support they have long deserved,” Schumer said.

“I will use all my clout as majority leader to push CMS to finalize this proposed wage increase, and I won’t stop until Upstate NY hospitals get the full reimbursements they have been denied for too long.” 

Photo of United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia, by Howard Owens.

Since United Memorial Medical Center has partnered with Healogics, an industry leader in wound care, it has cared for 9,000 patients and 40,000 wounds in the last seven years alone, with "highly skilled and trained staff” leading the hospital’s Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center as the recipient of two awards for its treatment achievements this week, Healogics Director of Operations Toni McCutcheon said Tuesday at the North Street facility.

“There are 65 collective years of experience in this wound care center, which is amazing. They provide exceptional wound care within the community. And since the center's opening, they have encountered nearly 40,000 wounds. It's amazing. It's amazing what the center does, it is reasonable to expect this center to have exceptional care and amazing healing outcomes,” she said. “So with that, the first award I'm going to present is an award for Clinical Excellence. This award is achieved by clinics that are in the top 10 percent of the wound meats adjusted comprehensive heal rate. The center is compared against over 600 other centers within the country that achieved top 10 percent.”

She added that, having visited the center, it’s an obvious team effort, and “these patients are well cared for and their wounds are healed and that's important to get them back their quality of life.”

This is a first for the Clinical Excellence Award, and a seventh time to be named Center of Distinction.

Dan Ireland, CEO of UMMC, spoke on behalf of hospital leadership and the board to congratulate the team and tell them, “we can’t be more proud of what this team has accomplished for the seventh time.”

“I can reflect on years ago when we first opened the center, we were all excited to have hyperbaric machines like that was the really cool thing to have. And we would show them off, but it quickly went beyond the fact of the equipment that we have, but to this great culture of a care team that we have here,” he said. “And it can't go without noticing it is all types of providers that play a role in here. You know from from Dr. Canzoneri and his provider team, to our PAs to our LPNs to our nurses to our support staff. They collectively work together to make sure that care is provided to the highest level and to be able to receive an award like this with such high score.”

One his Dr. Joseph Canzoneri’s “special patients,” Cherry Carl, shared her story of needing help for a hematoma that was ‘huge, painful” and could not be treated by her primary care physician. So she researched it and found UMMC’s Wound Care Center.

She drove two hours round-trip, and Dr. Canzoneri agreed to help. He explained what he was doing step-by-step and treated cut out the hematoma so that she could heal.

"No matter who you are, no matter where you are in your life's journey, you're welcome here. And no wound I think, is too small in this place. And then he exudes confidence. And he made sure that I knew what I had to do when I went home,” she said. “That meant weeks of coming here once a week, so he could scrape and scrape, and then it healed, but I if I hadn't come … because the wound was infected with Mersa an E. Coli. And if I had ignored it, I don't know.”

Canzoneri said that 50 million people globally suffer from foot and leg ulcerations each year, and the average healing time in most cases is over a year. That puts patients at high risk for amputations, death and other comorbidities, he said.

“Studies have proven and shown that basically, this team approach that we have here, especially at UMMC, helps reduce these comorbidities and mortality by 9 percent. Now, our job at UMMC wound care is not just to heal the patient, but it's to heal the patient as fast as we can and prevent the reoccurrence,” he said. “Our team approaches and uniqueness at UMMC help us further utilize our well-trained nurses, our dieticians, hospitals, physicians, infectious disease team vascular specialists, podiatry, orthopedics, nephrology, endocrinology or cardiology consultants, radiology, physical therapy, orthotics, home nursing care, and I'm sure a few others I forgot to mention. 

"This ability to coordinate quickly and effectively is what the patient needs in our Wound Care Center is what really makes us and helps us achieve that seven-year center of distinction,” he said.

 

Top Photo: Toni McCutcheon, director of operations for Healogics, left, presents an Award of Clinical Excellence to United Memorial Medical Center's Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center, led by Dr. Joseph Canzoneri, far right, Tuesday at the Batavia facility; team members celebrate their seventh Center of Distinction Award, also presented during the event; and a special patient shares her story with event participants. Bottom photo, a poem written by Cherry Carl for Dr. Joseph Canzoneri. Photos by Howard Owens.

Jason and Ashley Mlyniec and their two sons were some of the many people — adults and kids alike — sporting sunny yellow attire Thursday at Centennial Park.

The Batavia family had set up a table with a pitcher of lemonade and glass jars of lemon suckers and lemon puffballs. They definitely fit the theme of the inaugural lemonade stand fundraiser hosted by Rochester Regional Health and United Memorial Medical Center.

“We’re on the hospital foundation board,” Mrs. Mlyniec said. “This is for a good cause. We’ll do it again next year.”

Under the umbrella of RRH, each lemonade stand was created by individual families and groups that wanted to help raise money for the Swaddle Program. While one participant blew bubbles at her table, another stood behind a Charlie Brown-themed “the doctor is in” sign, and all of them had a special twist to their decor, including plenty of lemons.

The first-time event chairman was 10-year-old Patrick Casey, chosen for his prior involvement with fundraisers.

“I had some spare money, and I gave it to a fundraiser for the hospital, because it’s for a good cause,” he said. “If you’ve got some spare money lying around, give it to a good cause.”

Last year his mom, Lauren was talking with others about how to get young kids involved in the lemonade stand idea, and she in turn told Patrick about it.

“He thought it would be pretty fun to do for the summer,” she said.

The Caseys — including the chairman's father Peter and sisters, Madelyn and Emily, who wanted to help out — weren’t certain how many glasses of lemonade they handed out. Though Patrick did have to make a run or two for some more cups. Overall, the experience has been “cool,” he said.

“Knowing that you made all this happen, and all these people coming here to raise money,” he said.

As for the money raised, it will go for the purchase of baby swaddles, Senior Development Officer Lori Aratari said.

“Working with the maternity department, we realized that we didn't have the funds to be able to purchase the baby swaddles. So I kind of put my thinking cap on and said what can we do that would interest the community and engage families to want to support purchasing the baby swaddles for every baby that's born?” she said. “We obviously want to make sure our babies are safe when we let them leave the hospital. We're hoping that this will become an annual event. And as you can see, folks are outdoing themselves with the variety of displays that they have to sell their lemonade, so it really was open to them to be creative.”

The goal was to raise $4,000 to buy 500 baby swaddles, and $3,600 had already been raised before the 5 p.m. start time through the hospital’s Just Giving online platform, Aratari said.(For more about the Baby Swaddle initiative, see related story, Tuck 'em in, keep 'em safe.) 

Photos by Howard Owens

Top photo: Patrick Casey, 10, this year's chairman of the first-time Lemonade Stands fundraiser for Rochester Regional Health and United Memorial Medical Center Foundation.

Second photo: The Casey family -- Patrick, Madelyn, Peter, Emily and Lauren -- enjoys working its stand Thursday at Centennial Park, Batavia. 

Emerson Warner with lactation nurse Jay Balduf

Marigrace Cummings pours a cool cup of lemonade for Rick and Jane Scott

Maiy, Knox and Fae work at their lemonade stand

Mercedes Houseknecht plays in bubbles.