ELMIRA – Chemung County Executive Tom Santulli and representatives from Southern Tier Priority Healthcare, Arnot Ogden Medical Center, and Twin Tier Physicians Management held a ribbon cutting ceremony today to officially open the Priority Community Healthcare Center. The Center will serve as a primary care office for up to 4,000 Chemung County Medicaid recipients and will provide intensive care management for these previously unenrolled Medicaid managed care patients.  

“This is a giant step forward for our County, affording participating Medicaid individuals quality healthcare and oversight by medical professionals and care management staff,” said Santulli. “By providing this single point of entry into the healthcare system, recipients will receive quality healthcare and reduce the over-utilization of the emergency room and other healthcare services utilized by Medicaid enrollees. This care management system, coupled with Salient’s data tracking tool, could serve as a model for the State for true managed care of the Medicaid population,” added Santulli.

The Center will be staffed by a physician and nurse practitioners from Arnot Medical Services. Priority Healthcare will provide medical case management for each patient of the practice. Staff will utilize the data mining tool provided by the Salient Corporation, in combination with electronic medical records, to examine patient services and costs which can identify opportunities to lower overall medical costs.

“We have been planning this Center for years and are happy it has finally come to fruition,” said Santulli. “Through this partnership we will provide quality service to our Medicaid population while controlling and reducing program costs. It is imperative we continue to seek out opportunities to reduce the tax burden on our local property tax payers which contribute over 73% of their County property tax dollars to cover the cost of the Medicaid program locally,” added Santulli.

The 3,500 square feet Center is located in the County Human Resources Building and was completed at cost of $400,000 by local contractors and the County Building and Grounds staff. This cost will be paid for by rent payments from the Center which will be reimbursed by partial cap payments through State Medicaid reimbursement.