CM Narcisse on Maimonides merger status and delays
Narcisse asks about the Maimonides merger delay. Katz says it will go through eventually but requires an equity assessment before going to the state's PHPC committee. He notes $2.4B in state money is waiting and $9M per month in upper payment limit funds could flow once the merger completes.
Mamanis, we started talking earlier about it.
Mamanis Health was set to merge with H&H on April 1st.
But right now it's still not going through.
Am I correct?
It will go through eventually, but yes, it's taken a lot longer than any of us had hoped.
Okay.
So what step are you taking to push the merger through?
Is there a new date set?
We have not set a date because it's all dependent on the going before the states.
FIPAC committee, which is the Public Health Planning Committee.
And we learned just yesterday that in order to go before that committee, there needs to be another kind of assessment, an equity assessment.
So we're now working on the equity assessment, and when the equity assessment is over, then we will go to the committee.
And we believe that the committee will support this because everybody recognizes that this is a critical hospital and there is no other.
choice.
No one else has offered to help.
So 660 bed hospital with the trauma center, the only children's hospital in Brooklyn, the hospital needs to survive.
We have always said throughout this process, somebody else can do it, we're fine with that.
We did not get involved to take on more hospitals.
We got involved to preserve a critical resource.
And that's what we're doing.
If somebody else has another idea and they want, they can put together a proposal, that would be fine.
But this has now gone on months and while we have some opposition, there's no other proposal.
I keep saying it's fine to oppose something, but you need to tell us what you're going to suggest instead.
And so far, we haven't made any progress on that conversation.
And that's what I've been asking folks.
What's the solution?
Come up with a plan if you have a better plan.
And I have not heard any.
There's no money there.
Is there a possibility that the term of the merger will change after the resolution of the process that we're going on?
It's always possible, but we're, I mean, the state has provided generous support once it goes through.
We have $2.4 billion of state money.
Help save that hospital, but that money cannot flow to the hospital unless this is actually happening.
Okay.
And it's not, it's a tick-tock moment now because the more we're not doing it, the more money is being, we're losing now?
Nine, we could be giving them through the upper payment limit $9 million more per month for doing exactly the same thing they're doing now.
But as long as there's opposition, the process will be slow.
I'm going to leave that alone.
I had more questions, but since we got to go somewhere because I don't understand why all this.