Accepting New Patients in November:
Accepting Patients_November_by _County.pdf
To All who attended,
We thank you for celebrating our 205th Anniversary with us and look forward to the next event. Please see photos from the event at the link below.
MCMS 205th Anniversary Gala Photos here!
We would like to say thank you to our generous sponsors, as well, for a successful event!
Bradford C. Berk, MD, PhD, is a Distinguished University Professor and the founding Director of the University of Rochester Neurorestoration Institute (URNI). Recruited to the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) in 1998 as Chief of the Cardiology Division after faculty appointments at Harvard, Emory, and the University of Washington, he later served as Chairman of Medicine (2001–2006) and was named CEO of URMC in 2006. In May 2009, Dr. Berk sustained a severe spinal cord injury in a bicycle accident. Returning to his executive duties in 2010, the experience fundamentally shifted his perspective, inspiring him to champion a sweeping cultural transformation across URMC that prioritized patient-family centered care and healthcare reform.
Stepping down as CEO in 2015, Dr. Berk channeled his personal insight and clinical expertise into launching the URNI to restore function in individuals with traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and stroke. Under his leadership, the institute utilizes neuroplasticity strategies, advanced robotics, and exoskeletons, while his statewide clinical trials network, NeuroCuresNY, earned him a spot on City & State New York’s Life Sciences Power 50 in 2021. He also serves as URMC's Vice Chair of Research for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. As a dedicated advocate, he published the highly acclaimed book, Getting Your Brain and Body Back: Everything You Need to Know after Spinal Cord Injury, Stroke, or Traumatic Brain Injury, in 2021 to guide patients through the medical and emotional hurdles of neuro-rehabilitation.
Throughout his career, Dr. Berk has maintained a highly cited, prolific research portfolio, publishing more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books exploring vascular biology, macrophage behaviors, and the inflammatory pathways driving cardiovascular and neuro-injuries. A respected voice in global medicine, he frequently presents at international forums and has served on the advisory boards of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Heart Association (AHA), and numerous biotech companies.
Click here for the list!
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:521373d4-84d5-447c-8a6d-8f344cae07d2
This article was written by Dr. Hemant Kalia with the support of Dr. Sahar Elezabi and Dr. Mark Adams. It will be published in the American Journal of Medicine and included in MSSNY Highlights. Click here for the full article.
Here are the highlights:
A misdiagnosis at the center of cost-control policy
Few facts about the US health system are as well established as its cost. Spending reached $5.26 trillion in 2024—$15,474 per person and 18.0% of the gross domestic product—after roughly tripling in nominal terms over two decades (1). What is less settled is the diagnosis. Much of the policy apparatus built since the mid-2000s rests on an implicit theory of the case: that costs rise because clinicians order too much care and are paid too generously for it. From that premise flow the dominant interventions of the era—prior authorization, medical-necessity review, narrow networks, downward pressure on physician fee schedules, and value-based contracts that place clinicians at financial risk for utilization.
If the premise were correct, two decades of intensifying clinical oversight should have bent the curve. They have not. The purpose of this editorial is to connect several independent bodies of evidence—national expenditure accounts, consumer price data, labor statistics, and international comparisons—and to show that the data point toward a different and largely structural explanation. The biggest drivers of American health care costs lie not in the examination room, but in the pricing systems and administrative machinery surrounding each clinical encounter.
Two decades of growth, before and after inflation
The appropriate first step to level the playing field is to remove economy-wide inflation confounders. Between 2004 and 2024 the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose about 66% (2). Deflating national health expenditure to constant 2024 dollars—multiplying each year's spending by the ratio of the 2024 price index to that year's index—reduces, but does not eliminate, the growth. Real health spending still expanded by approximately 71% over the two decades. In other words, even after stripping out general inflation, the health sector grew markedly faster than the broad basket of goods and services against which it is measured.
This excess growth is the quantity that requires explanation. It cannot be attributed to general price inflation, because it survives adjustment for it. The natural next question is whether it reflects a commensurate expansion of clinical capacity—more physicians delivering more care to a growing and aging population?
It is not chiefly the doctors
It does not. The active physician workforce numbered 1,032,365 in 2024 (3), having grown by roughly 29% since 2004—approximately in line with population growth and well short of the ~71% real growth in spending (Table-1). The divergence is the central empirical observation of this editorial and is displayed in the Figure 1: when each series is indexed to its 2004 value, nominal spending, hospital expenditure, and estimated administrative spending all roughly triple, while the physician workforce barely rises above the line of general inflation. Whatever is driving real cost growth, it is not a proportional increase in the number of clinicians.
Where the money goes: prices and administration, not volume
Two converging lines of evidence locate the excess cost. The first is international. In the most cited cross-national comparison of recent years, Papanicolas et al. (2018) found that US utilization—hospital discharges, physician visits, and common procedures—was broadly similar to that of other high-income countries, yet the US spent roughly twice as much. The difference was driven by prices for labor, goods, and pharmaceuticals, and by administrative costs, which consumed about 8% of US spending under a narrow definition versus 1% to 3% elsewhere. The United States does not, on the whole, use conspicuously more care; it pays conspicuously more for each unit and spends far more administering the transaction. (4)
The second line is domestic and structural. Hospital care is, and has remained, the single largest category of national health spending—$1.63 trillion in 2024, about 31% of the total, ahead of physician and clinical services ($1.11 trillion) and retail prescription drugs ($467 billion) (1). Hospital expenditure has grown in close parallel with overall spending (Figure-1), and the literature attributes much of that growth to price rather than to volume, with provider consolidation a recurring mechanism: as regional hospital systems acquire competitors and physician practices, they gain leverage to negotiate higher commercial prices, frequently accompanied by facility fees on services that were previously billed at lower office rates.
An honest accounting of the administrative thesis
The administrative-cost literature is the empirical backbone of this argument, and it should be represented precisely. Himmelstein et al. (2020) estimated that administration costs had risen to 34.2% — about $2,497 per capita, against $551 in single-payer Canada—with the largest US-Canada gaps in insurer overhead, hospital administration, and physicians' insurance-related costs. A meaningful component of the increase since 1999 is attributable to the growing role of private managed-care plans in administering public programs, whose overhead substantially exceeds that of traditional Medicare. (5)
Why the orthodox remedies have underperformed
Seen in this light, several disappointments of the past two decades become coherent. Utilization management did not eliminate spending but relocated it: every prior-authorization requirement calls for a corresponding investment in coding, appeals, and revenue-cycle staff on the provider side, enlarging the very administrative layer that comparative data identified as excessive. Documentation mandates intended to improve quality consumed clinician time and generate demand for scribes and informatics personnel. Payment models that placed independent practices at financial risk accelerated their absorption into larger systems, a structural change that tends to raise, not lower, negotiated prices.
A reorientation of policy
If the diagnosis is structural, the remedies must be as well. Four priorities follow from the evidence assembled here, offered as directions rather than detailed prescriptions:
Conclusion
The United States has spent two decades managing its health care costs as though the problem lay with the people who deliver care. The data assembled here—national expenditure trends adjusted for inflation, a physician workforce that grew only with the population, international comparisons that find ordinary utilization at extraordinary prices, and an administrative apparatus that consumes roughly a third of every dollar—point elsewhere. Reasonable analysts still disagree about the precise weighting of prices, intensity, and administration, and that debate should continue. But the weight of the evidence is sufficient to warrant a change of aim. Until policy confronts prices, consolidation, and administrative complexity directly, the system will continue to spend more while asking clinicians to do more with less.
References
1. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2025). National health expenditure accounts: Historical data and NHE fact sheet (2024). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data date accessed: 5/05/26
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U): U.S. city average, all items [Data set]. U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/. date accessed: 5/05/26
3. Association of American Medical Colleges. (2025). 2025 key findings: U.S. physician workforce data dashboard. https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/data/2025-key-findings. date accessed: 5/05/26
4. Papanicolas, I., Woskie, L. R., & Jha, A. K. (2018). Health care spending in the United States and other high-income countries. JAMA, 319(10), 1024–1039. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.1150
5. Himmelstein, D. U., Campbell, T., & Woolhandler, S. (2020). Health care administrative costs in the United States and Canada, 2017. Annals of Internal Medicine, 172(2), 134–142. https://doi.org/10.7326/M19-2818
Rochester, NY, August, 19,2026 - The Monroe County Medical Society has recognized Ghinwa Dumyati, MD and Barb Glassman with its 2026 Edward Mott Moore Physician and Layperson Awards. This award recognizes individuals whose dedication to the community goes above and beyond the usual call of duty.
2026 Edward Mott Moore Physician Award Ghinwa Dumyati, MD
Ghinwa Dumyati, MD, is an infectious diseases physician and Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, where she directs the Communicable Diseases Surveillance and Prevention Program at the Center for Community Health & Prevention. She trained at the American University of Beirut before completing her residency and fellowship at the University of Rochester. She has practiced medicine in Rochester since 1995 and joined Strong Memorial Hospital in 2007. Since 2008, she has led infectious disease surveillance for the Rochester region of the CDC's Emerging Infections Program; data from this work help shape national public health policy. Locally, she led hospital collaboratives that reduced central line-associated bloodstream infections by 50% and C. difficile infections by 30%. The latter initiative received the Greater Rochester Quality Council's Performance Excellence Platinum Award. For more than a decade, she has also led a regional collaborative helping nursing homes establish antibiotic stewardship programs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she helped facilities manage outbreaks and provided guidance on treatment and vaccines. This work was recognized with a University of Rochester Medical Center Alumni Service Award. Throughout her career, she has taught and mentored infectious disease fellows, residents, and public health students at the University of Rochester.
2026 Edward Mott Moore Layperson Award
Barb Glassman
After navigating the corporate world, Barb used her experience to start several small businesses in Rochester, NY. Her primary focuses include strategic direction, continuous improvement, business and professional growth. Barb has spent the last decade centered on humanizing the workplace. Her career began as the first female electrical engineering technology graduate at SUNY Alfred, and she later expanded into sales, marketing, and adult education. In parallel with her corporate career advancement, Barb worked behind the scenes at G-FORCE Collaborations, a marketing communications firm. In 2018, learning about Rochester's high poverty rankings, Barb shifted her focus to local economic and community development. This included a two-year coaching role at the Rochester Commissary kitchen incubator, where she also stepped in as interim president to ensure stability. As an ICF-certified executive coach with a "pay-it-forward" commitment, Barb mentors professionals through major transitions, with a special focus on guiding young people through early adulthood and career challenges. Today, she serves on multiple business and non-profit boards, co-founded DisruptHR ROC, and contributes to the Patient Clinician Alliance. Much of her current time is dedicated to equitable regional workforce development and helping the Greater Rochester region earn its ACT Work Ready certification.
About Monroe County Medical Society
Over 1,200 physicians are members of the Monroe County Medical Society/7th District Branch. The Monroe County Medical Society is a non-profit organization formed to extend medical knowledge and to advance medical science, to elevate the standards of medicine, to promote reforms and to enlighten and direct public opinion on the problems of health and medicine for the best interests of the people of Monroe County. For more information visit www.mcms.org or email mcms@mcms.org.
The Rochester Medical Orchestra will be presenting their summer concert: Classical Vintages, at Monroe Community Hospital on August 14, 2026 at 7PM. Here is a link: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/events/event-detail/53479754542075
Here are the Physicians accepting new Patients at URMC for August.
Accepting Patients_August_by _County (002).pdf
Accepting New Patients_July.pdf
Article by:
Dr. Michael R. Privitera , Elon Slutsky, J. Richard Ciccone, Tiffany Chan, Xi (Sisi) Hu, Elizabeth L.B. Greene, Catherine Cerulli
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:dc8a7c00-1e02-482e-a125-2b691ddaf7bd
