From left: Matthew Baney; Michael Mullen, MD, Director, Institute for Advanced Medicine; Eli Camhi, VP and General Manager, VNSNY CHOICE SelectHealth; Edward Lucy, Chief Administrative and Contracting Officer, Mount Sinai Health Partners; Andrew Snyder, MD, Chief Clinical Integration Officer, Mount Sinai Health System; and Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
VNSNY CHOICE SelectHealth, a New York State Department of Health Special Needs Plan for Medicaid-eligible New Yorkers living with HIV, recently awarded the Mount Sinai Health System $420,500 for reducing HIV viral loads in its members. Mount Sinai treats more than 1,100 VNSNY CHOICE SelectHealth members a year.
“Mount Sinai has achieved the highest number of viral-load suppressed patients in our network,” said Jay Dobkin, MD, Medical Director for VNSNY CHOICE SelectHealth. “When antiretroviral treatment reduces the HIV viral load, it also reduces the risk of HIV transmission.”
Mount Sinai and VNSNY CHOICE SelectHealth have a long history of working well together and ensuring quality care, according to Matthew Baney, Senior Director of the Institute for Advanced Medicine, which directs all of the Mount Sinai Health System’s HIV prevention and treatment programs that serve 10,000 patients annually. “This award reflects our efforts to provide the best care to patients throughout the Institute for Advanced Medicine and underscores our firm commitment to deliver on quality,” said Mr. Baney. Mount Sinai’s use of EPIC, a standardized medical record system that captures the quality metrics required for state-of-the-art care, has helped tremendously, he added.