Our practices had nearly 650,000 patient visits in fiscal year 2018. This is the highest number of annual visits we’ve had in more than a decade. We attribute this to an increase in the number of faculty physicians and non-physician providers, the emergence of UF Health North and improved access to care. On average, six days is the wait for a new primary care appointment and 13 days for a specialty service appointment.

Speaking of UF Health North, the medical office building is still growing, as we’ve added new services, including community health and family medicine, and expanded existing ones, such as podiatry, urology and gastroenterology.

We continue to enhance patient communication through the MyUFHealth patient portal. We now have more than 80,000 users, and that number continues to grow. Patients can make credit card payments through this portal, which is an added convenience.

Meanwhile, several committees are working to further improve access to care and patient satisfaction while also enhancing provider satisfaction and wellness. We are working on a wellness center proposal and are recruiting a director.

Project updates

Following are updates on new and existing projects:

• A groundbreaking ceremony was held Aug. 15 for the Wildlight development in Nassau County, where we will have a primary care presence. Brasfield & Gorrie has been selected as the general contractor for the construction project and SunTrust was chosen as the funding financial institution. The practice is expected to open in November 2019.
• A lease has been signed and construction will soon begin on the Nocatee primary care and pediatrics practice in St. Johns County. We plan to begin seeing patients in early 2019.
• There are nearly 10,000 square feet of unused space at the Emerson Medical Plaza. A task force has generated some great ideas on how it could be used. We will explore those ideas over the next few months.

Operating budget

We didn’t meet our fiscal year 2018 operating budget. There were several unanticipated headwinds, including Hurricane Irma, inclement weather in January and a reduction in hospital support. Despite that, we fared well, as there were two unexpected sources of revenue:

• Increase in Upper Payment Limit money ($28 million budgeted vs. $35 million actual)
• Low Income Pool money ($17.3 million)

For a better understanding of our financial performance, review the following chart.

As the pie chart shows, more than 90 percent of our revenue comes from clinical sources, such as clinical revenue, academic support and Upper Payment Level. Although the unanticipated revenue helped us, how can we sustain and enhance our practice in the long run? There are no quick fixes, but several ideas have emerged. We will evaluate and share those moving forward. If you have ideas, I’d like to hear them.

On another note, it is important we recognize and respect the hard-working physicians, non-physician providers and clinical support staff. There are hundreds of dedicated women and men working hard behind the scenes to help ensure clinical teams operate smoothly.

Our vision is to be the region’s most valued health care asset, and we need everyone to get us there.