SYRACUSE, NY | Posted on July 31, 2017 at 2:06 PM
Original article can be found at: http://www.syracuse.com/
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The Syracuse Community Health Center, SCHC for short, is closing its office in LaFayette so it can pay more attention to its Syracuse operations.
The LaFayette Family Health Center on Route 11, about 12 1/2 miles south of Syracuse, will close Tuesday.
Syracuse Community Health Center officials said the closing will not be disruptive for the 250 patients who use the LaFayette office because many of them have found other doctors. They said other doctors are considering setting up a practice at the LaFayette office after SCHC leaves. SCHC has been leasing the space.
Two employees who work at the LaFayette office are being relocated to other SCHC locations.
SCHC has operated the LaFayette office since 2001. The facility opened in 1995 as a training site for Crouse Hospital’s former family medicine residency program.
Crouse closed the residency program in 2001 to cut costs as part of a bankruptcy reorganization. SCHC took over the LaFayette center at the request of the state health department.
SCHC, which opened in 1978, is the only federally qualified health center serving Onondaga County. It specializes in providing health care in underserved areas. Many of its patients are covered by Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
It operates four locations in Syracuse and health centers in eight city schools. It used to operate the Onondaga Nation health center until Upstate University Hospital took over that operation in 2010.
The state recently awarded SCHC a $12.8 million grant to renovate its main office at 819 S. Salina St., and its offices on the city’s near West Side and South Side.
SCHC is working to improve care and make it easier for patients to get care at its Syracuse locations, according to Leola Rodgers, SCHC’s president and CEO.
SCHC has struggled financially in recent years as patient volume declined. It abandoned plans to build a new facility on South Salina Street across the street from its main office.
Rodgers said the organization is now seeing an uptick in patients seeking mental health services, substance abuse treatment, primary care and pediatric services.
After losing $10 million in 2015 and $2 million in 2016, SCHC expects to break even this year, according to Rodgers.
“We want the community to understand we are here for the long run,” she said.
Contact James T. Mulder anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-470-2245
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