New medical practices take root in Brooklyn

Brooklyn has become a hot spot for new medical practices, Crain’s reported. Next month, Freelancers Union will open a clinic at 408 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn and, in January of next year, Mount Sinai Hospital is slated to set up a large group practice at 1 Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn Heights. The Manhattan-based Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York last month opened a location at 26 Court Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

In addition, three clinics that cater exclusively to senior citizens enrolled in the Empire Cross Blue Shield Medicare Advantage plans will open this month in Flatbush, East Flatbush and Coney Island.

This development comes as health care dollars are increasingly being spent at less-expensive outpatient clinics, rather than at inpatient facilities.

“Community hospitals will not be as relevant to health care in the future,” Dr. Simeon Schwartz, the CEO of Westmed Medical Group, which will manage Mount Sinai’s new 75,000-square-foot Brooklyn location. “Ambulatory-care facilities can be built at a fraction of the cost of saving an ailing hospital.” [Crain’s] — Zachary Kussin