Dr. Katz opening testimony on H&H financial performance
Dr. Katz testifies on H&H's strong financial position with $784M cash balance, 22 days cash on hand, and $134M positive operating margin. He highlights $60M higher patient care revenue, $472M in financial initiatives, 10,800 nurses, and reduced registry usage. He warns of HR1 headwinds and operating losses in outer years.
Good afternoon, Chair Narcisse, Chair Lee, and members of the Committee on Hospitals and Finance.
I'm Dr.
Mitch Katz.
I'm a primary care doctor, and I'm the proud president and CEO of New York City Health and Hospitals.
I have my great CFO here, John Ulberg, and Dr.
Yang, who does an amazing job for correctional health.
Our executive plan builds on the January plan.
I'm happy to say we are doing very well.
We're going to close the fiscal year with the closing.
cash balance of $784 million, or 22 days of cash on hand, and a positive operating margin of $134 million, all in line with our historic performance.
Some financial good news, our
patient care revenue, which comes strictly from insurance, $60 million higher than in the same period in fiscal 25.
Our financial initiatives remain on track to achieve $472 million of gain.
Pump all that money into hiring nurses, which I know our chair is a huge supporter of.
The nurses keep our patients safe and take care of them.
We're now up to 10,800 full and part-time nurses, and we've reduced our use of registry really to only what it's meant to be when someone has a
maternity leave, a paternity leave, a disability leave, and you're holding their job, but not using temporary as a staffing method.
We're grateful that the executive budget gave us funding for correctional health and maternal morbidity and mortality.
A council knows that there are headwinds ahead, that HR1, it's a very mean...
spirited piece of legislation.
I'm sure you discussed the parts of it with the DOHMH and DSS.
We're all involved in different ways that people are going to be pushed off
services, whether it's for food, whether it's for health insurance, and it certainly will affect our bottom line because we will still take care of them.
Whether or not we get paid, that's not going to change whether or not we are going to take care of them, which explains why we do show operating losses in fiscal 28 and 30.
I'm an optimist.
I hope that there will be changes after the next election.
But we are going to make sure that we do everything possible to maintain the care to our patients, regardless of whether or not they have health insurance.
So I look forward to your suggestions, your comments, your questions, and appreciate the amazing support that we've enjoyed from the City Council.
Thank you.