ONONDAGA — A new group at Upstate University Hospital at Community General is working to pump up cardiology care. Dr. Norman Jaffe and Dr. Jorge Martinez opened Community Cardiology at the hospital last Nov. 28. The group is a division of FamilyCare Medical Group, PC, which is a multi-specialty medical organization with more than 30 […]
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Dr. Norman Jaffe and Dr. Jorge Martinez opened Community Cardiology at the hospital last Nov. 28. The group is a division of FamilyCare Medical Group, PC, which is a multi-specialty medical organization with more than 30 locations in Central New York.
The two doctors who formed Community Cardiology opened its doors just five days after a practice they had been affiliated with, Clay–based SJH Cardiology Associates, closed its office at Community General. Jaffe and Martinez decided to form their own cardiology office rather than leave Community General.
“Our thinking was that we’ve developed a nice practice on this side of town,” Jaffe says. “This is where our patients want to go.”
But they did not strike out on their own. Instead, they became a division of FamilyCare Medical Group, which Jaffe says referred about 75 percent of their patients to them.
“Do we go on our own?” he says. “We thought there were too many liabilities at this time, when everybody’s joining with other people. And this seems to be the natural alliance.”
In addition to Jaffe and Martinez, Community Cardiology employs a nurse practitioner and 10 other workers, such as technicians and an office manager. The group is already operating near capacity.
Jaffe estimates Community Cardiology can see between 750 and 800 patients per month at its current staffing levels. It can test about 160 patients per month, he adds.
The medical group has its own space to perform electrocardiographic treadmill stress tests that check a heart’s electrical activity and echocardiographic stress tests that use sound to examine the heart. It also shares Community General equipment that allows it to perform nuclear stress tests, which use small amounts of a radiopharmaceutical to develop images of the heart.
“We’re talking about how we’re going to add in capacity to keep up with demand, which is a nice problem to have,” Jaffe says.
No expansion plans are on the table yet. Jaffe and Martinez will meet with FamilyCare Medical Group before finalizing any growth goals.
However, Jaffe says he would like to add another practitioner to the office in a year. And he would like to add an invasive cardiologist in 18 months to two years.
Community Cardiology currently operates in 2,800 square feet in the Physicans Office Building North at Community General. The group has the right of first refusal to adjacent office space as well, so it could conceivably grow at its current location, according to Jaffe.
Launching Community Cardiology was no easy task, according to Jaffe and Martinez. They were unable to reach an agreement to take over a lease for 4,400 square feet of space that SJH Cardiology Associates had been leasing in the Physicians Office Building South, Jaffe says. So they decided to lease their current 2,800-square-foot space in the north building — six weeks before the office needed to open.
And while the office space is in a clinical building, it wasn’t being used as a doctor’s office before Community Cardiology moved in.
“This was a warehouse,” Martinez says. “It was filled with air compressors. We looked at it and we said, ‘You think this is going to be ready in six weeks?’ And they said, ‘Oh yeah. We’ll work hard.’ And they did it.”
Renovations to the office space included new walls and wider doors that could accommodate wheelchairs. Upstate University Hospital handled the renovations and built the cost into Community Cardiology’s lease.
Jaffe and Martinez footed startup costs of about $160,000, Martinez says. That includes leasing equipment and purchasing equipment. They used credit from M&T Bank to help finance the costs.
The doctors also had to shift their focus when they started Community Cardiology.
“Being part of FamilyCare is much more preventive and outpatient,” Jaffe says.
Martinez says that although it took him some time to get used to that idea, he is happy with the new emphasis.
“I couldn’t see myself not being involved in acute-care patients on a daily basis,” he says. “Now the pendulum has swung to diagnose them early so we don’t have to have multiple interventions that are costly in the future.”