CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. – Over 50% of rural hospitals in New York are in financial distress and at-risk of closure according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform but Thompson Health in Canandaigua seems to be bucking the trend.
The whole front entrance at Thompson Hospital is under construction and inside, they’re expanding too.
News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke sat down with the CEO to see how his hospital continues to grow in a climate where many may shutter.
Part of it comes down to location. Thompson is in a more affluent, rural area where people are willing to donate.
It also comes down to population. “We’re very fortunate here in Ontario County that Farmington and Victor are two of the only growing communities I think in the entire state. A lot of young families are coming in, we all know in our business it’s the female head of households who makes the healthcare decision so, we want her engaged with us as a health system as early as possible,” says Michael Stapleton, CEO of UR Thompson Health.
That’s why the hospital is currently expanding its birthing center and adding new imaging services. “We, in a couple of years are hoping to build a brand new expansion because we are so busy, we’re boarding every day, we want to build an additional 18 bed unit and an 8 bed progressive care unit,” Stapleton adds.
It used to be that patients started at a rural hospital and would need to be transferred to a bigger medical center but during the pandemic, the opposite was happening and that model continues to hold here. “We opened up a new ICU 5 years ago which having that higher level to take care of that higher acuity patient, that’s one of the big things that have led to our success because there were patients before that would we’d have to transfer to Rochester, to Strong and Highland that we now keep here,” Stapleton says.
There’s also another big reason why Thompson Health is bucking the trend and it has to do with the UR that was added to the front of its name more than a decade ago. “Plain and simple, we wouldn’t be here without the University of Rochester. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation, pretty much every single community hospital I know now, has joined with an academic medical center or a larger faculty, you have to… it’s led to a decrease in our expenses, much greater buying power, negotiating leverage, better malpractice insurance, I mean I could go on down the line,” Stapleton says.
It’s still early for Stapleton to know how much the cuts to Medicaid will impact the hospital since most of them don’t go into effect until after 2026 but the Medicaid population isn’t as high at Thompson as it is at many other smaller hospitals in more low-income rural areas.
Stapleton says the thing that still keeps him up at night is the crisis with the shortage of long-term care beds our region has been experiencing for years now.
The nursing home attached to Thompson Hospital is regularly at 99% capacity and the demand is only going to grow.
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