Urban hospitals have a storied history in America, both as teaching academies for newly graduated doctors and as a hub of civic activity.
Like the neighboring schools, and churches and synagogues, which constitute the lifeblood of a community, enhanced by the decorative architecture of City Hall and the greenery of public parks, playgrounds and amphitheaters, urban hospitals symbolize the continuity and character of a place where citizens depend on the care of such a vital organization.
And yet, urban hospitals are under attack in a lopsided media war that ignores their innovative efforts to be financially independent and accessible to the very people who need the services these institutions provide.
The best example of this point involves the revival of the Bayonne Medical Center, a hospital founded in 1888, the same period when suffragists organized a Congress for Women's Rights, visitors celebrated the opening of the Washington Monument, George Eastman registered the name Kodak and patented his roll film camera, and Europe saw the Year of the Three Emperors.
Across a century and quarter of war, depression, immigration, exile, and the rise and fall of English and Teutonic empires, the Bayonne Medical Center on 29th Street and Avenue E in Bayonne, New Jersey, remains an edifice of healing and a proverbial rock of reverence: It serves a city of nearly 5,000 Native Americans, 6,000 Pacific Islanders, 16,000 Latinos and 44,000 Caucasians; a mosaic of individual ambition and resilience, in addition to collective grace and goodwill.
To close the Bayonne Medical Center is to mortally wound a community, while adding to an ominous list of casualties – a sad catalog of shuttered or razed urban hospitals – felled by a seemingly impenetrable force of mass destruction.
Consider, too, that less than 75 percent of urban hospital patients have insurance, and that the past decade includes the closure of almost 40 urban hospitals in New Jersey alone.
So, yes, I take offense at the not-so-subtle attempts to add the Bayonne Medical Center to this roll call of emptied buildings and displaced doctors and nurses. (Please also note: While I am a defender of urban hospitals, and value the ones within my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, I am not a consultant to or affiliated with the Bayonne Medical Center or any other hospital in or outside of New Jersey.)
The best way to enable urban hospitals to thrive is to give them the freedom to bring insurance companies to the bargaining table, which would not be possible without the ability to terminate a contract.
That liberty is the result of courageous investors, who deserve credit for restoring the Bayonne Medical Center to its glorious reputation. These professionals know that the status quo is neither effective nor sustainable.
And, because they understand that urban hospitals must control out-of-network expenses and enjoy higher rates of reimbursement, they – the investors who have pledged their sacred honor and treasure, their own money, to this cause – should be applauded, not condemned.
Indeed, the economic health of these hospitals relies on their respective rights to renegotiate rates at levels that preserve the long-term financial outlook of these organizations.
Adopting the 'Bayonne Model' for the Good of a Community: The Way Forward
I choose to highlight the Bayonne Medical Center because it is a metaphor for genuine health care reform.
For, if we are to broaden and protect access to health care, then we must save the urban hospitals that treat so many huddled masses, hands-in-pockets and coat-collars-turned-upward, that brave the elements in search of medical treatment.
The "Bayonne Solution," which rescued the place from bankruptcy, addresses the inadequate payments insurance companies have been making to hospitals.
With the Bayonne Medical Center as an example, in which a restructuring and cancellation of existing insurance contracts (because of the refusal of these companies to reach a fair settlement) resulted in 95 percent of patients now having some form of insurance payment, urban hospitals can exercise the leverage they need to survive.
That latitude allows these hospitals to counteract the pressure by insurance companies to lower payments and negotiate downward.
Such a "negotiation" is one in name only because it makes urban hospitals absorb (if they can) the fees and financial penalties that threaten their own longevity and the care of their respective patients.
If, however, we give urban hospitals the power that is their moral right – and if we encourage these houses of healing to emulate the tactics used by the Bayonne Medical Center – then we will preserve the core of a community's sense of justice.
Urban hospitals are part of the tapestry of this great nation.
We have an obligation to save and strengthen them.
A technology entrepreneur and investor, Hayden Gill writes about issues involving commerce, health and wellness, and executive leadership. He can be reached at hg@buzzdron.com
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