3 min read December 2022 — With increasing waiting lists, the massive exodus of employees, the rise in wages and a coming recession, the healthcare industry in South Florida is in trouble, Vincent Carrodeguas, president and CEO of Banyan Health Systems, told Invest:. Still, his outlook is positive. “We will continue to grow; we will have significant growth and we will achieve our goals,” he said.
What are the biggest achievements and milestones for your company in the last year?
One big accomplishment is that we have now onboarded close to 12 new board members. The two biggest boards that have incredible takeaways are our Foundation Board, which is designed for advocacy to create a long-term sustainable plan for our facilities and also creating a long-term sustainable development program for the system. We also onboarded and activated two brand new board members at our Research Institute.
We’ve also been able to build an enormous care coordination department that has taken us a year to pull off. It’s been a combination of private funding and public funding from the federal government through grants and awards. We’ve received multimillion-dollar multiyear grants. We now have 45 full-time employees in our Care Coordination Department and that’s just a huge lift for us and for bettering the type of upper-tier service that we provide our patients.
For the year that ended June 30, 2022, we posted double-digit growth. That growth in and of itself is a big achievement for us. We have been awarded new grants from all sources, either federal or state, or private funding. In the last 20 months, we’ve been awarded $19 million. Now, of course, that funding is not spent in one year, it’s spent between two and five years. So, it’s spread out over time. That funding allows us to improve the quality of care and hit our metrics.
What sets your organization apart from others in the market?
We are very different from other healthcare centers. The average health center does not have a research department like Banyan. Our healthcare system spans not just behavioral health and within that behavioral health arena, substance use and mental health, but also physical care and primary care. That is integration. We treat our patients and we integrate primary care with behavioral health care to treat the whole patient. We research our integration and we conduct research and evaluate how effective it is. And we span it for years and years. That sets us apart from most healthcare systems.
How is the economy affecting your operation?
We’ve had great financial gains but it’s still a tough market. Wages are really through the roof and the cost of living is through the roof. As a result, all our bills are going up, all our employee salaries are going up and it’s very hard to keep up. We aren’t necessarily the highest payer in town and we’re certainly not the lowest payer, we are somewhere in the middle, but it is very hard to compete in the middle. Along with those financial gains and achieving those financial goals for the year, I would tell you that it’s been a difficult road.
Some sources and economic forecasters that I follow are indicating that the recession will be tough because the market will slip, and it will become an employers’ market. Not that that’s good or bad but jobs that are paid at a certain level today won’t be paid like that in the next 12 months. We’ve been in a recession for the last two quarters and we might be in the third quarter but it’s been a soft recession. The longer the recession continues and the longer the cost-of-living increases, the tougher it is on the back-end. It will certainly impact our business just like everybody else.
Where do you think the industry stands right now?
The industry as a whole is in trouble. You’ve got waiting lists that are increasing. About six months ago, there was a massive exodus of employees from the healthcare industry. Miami was no different. So, you’re not only up against an increase in wages but now there are just simply fewer employees to fill those positions.
Everybody is also now scrambling for providers. If it was a challenge before to get an appointment, now you have to wait for one to three months and the situation is not improving. We’ve also had legacy problems, like recruiting nurses and medical assistants, which is not better, it’s worse. So, on the provider side, it’s very difficult and very challenging. You’ve also got challenges with payers. So, payors are having a lot of problems. As a result, you’ve got payers exiting the state of Florida. You’ve got payers that have been denied service because they aren’t paying the providers, they aren’t paying on a timely basis. Overall, there are a lot of challenges in this industry today.
What is your outlook for Banyan Health for the near term and what are your top priorities?
I have a great outlook. We have a strategic plan, we execute that strategic plan, we have achieved that strategy in the last 24 months and we have reevaluated our strategy and the Board of Directors has approved it. We will continue to grow; we will have significant growth and we will achieve our goals, which are the creation and rehabilitation of all of our facilities and to create an integrated care platform in every one of our service delivery models. The expansion of the outpatient model will also continue. Lastly, we have an initiative to rebuild our Little Havana clinic. We currently have facilities in Little Havana. That will be a brand-new facility. It’ll be anywhere from 70 to 90,000 square feet, split down the middle between parking and clinic space.
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