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How We Are Strengthening the Health of Our Community

We are driven to enhance lives and preserve health in the Rochester community to the best of our ability. Explore the many ways we have accomplished this – both with our employees and our community.

Dec. 19, 2023 5   min read

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At Rochester Regional Health, we make it our focus each day to provide access to care for all who need it in the communities we serve in Rochester, the Finger Lakes Region, and New York State’s North Country. This drives each decision we make.

Rochester Regional operates at a cost of more than $8 million a day. With overall hospital expenses rising over the last five years, compounded with labor shortages, aging patients, supply chain disruptions, and staffing challenges, this marked the first year in our health system’s history that we operated at a financial loss.

Amid these challenges, we embarked on a transformative journey to strengthen our foundational pillars and are proud of the course on which we have set ourselves to provide strong, comprehensive care for everyone. We move forward on this endeavor by investing in both our workforce and our community.

Investing in our employees

Caregivers are the backbone of our health system and are our most vital resource. Our 19,400 team members provide our community with the high-quality care they deserve close to home across more than 550 health care practice locations – including 9 hospitals, 30 patient lab testing sites, and 11 urgent care sites.

Of our annual revenue in 2022, more than 60 percent was dedicated toward the labor costs of our workforce – providing them with wages and benefits that reflect the importance of the work they are so well recognized for in their communities and at a national level.

As a non-profit healthcare organization, any financial surplus that may arise during the year is reinvested into the Rochester Regional Health system to develop new technology & programs, and enhance the services to meet needs in our community that are not currently being met.

Investing in our community

We are committed to seeing our patients and the people living in our neighborhoods, towns, and cities live healthy, fulfilling lives. Over the course of 2022, we served 1.6 million residents across more than 13,600 square miles.

We proudly offered $22 million in financial assistance to patients who could not afford the total cost of their treatment, and partnered directly and indirectly with several organizations that support underserved and underrepresented groups in the areas where we live.

Programs like Health Reach, which offers medical and dental care for unhoused individuals in Rochester, and our School-Based Health Centers, which bring high-quality medical and mental health care to students within several Rochester City School District schools, address the social determinants of health in the communities we serve. These are among the many programs helping to bring approximately $474 million in care to those who need it most.

“Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on us at Rochester Regional Health,” said Richard “Chip” Davis, PhD, CEO of Rochester Regional Health. “As a not-for-profit provider, we serve all who need care, regardless of their ability to pay. When the community needs a program to fight infant mortality, care for schoolchildren or embrace refugees, we step up. And when Medicare and Medicaid pay us only cents on the dollar of costs, we cover the shortfall. And we do this while continuously investing in our most precious resource: our team members.”

NEXT STEPS Our Impact On Our Community

Throughout financial and operational challenges that challenged all health care organizations in 2022, we initiated a transformation journey to strengthen our foundation while staying true to our mission of enhancing lives and preserving health by enabling access to our network of affordable, high-quality care.

Read The Full Community Impact Report
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