DPH reports net surplus at six-month projection; COVID accounting and staff redeployments affect primary care

The Department of Public Health presented its second-quarter financial projection on April 6. Acting Chief Financial Officer Jenny Louie told the commission that, after recognizing a delayed disproportionate-share hospital reduction of about $51.7 million, the department’s six-month projection shows a net surplus in the roughly $60.6 million range.

Louie described an accounting step: reassigning salary and operating costs for staff deployed to COVID response into a Public Health Administration COVID project so the city can more accurately track new versus preexisting expenditures and support potential federal or state reimbursement claims. That reallocation produced offsetting variances across divisions: some divisions show negative salary variances where staff were charged to the COVID project while other divisions show corresponding positive variances.

Citywide COVID project projections also changed since earlier estimates, largely because of ongoing shelter-in-place hotel and feeding costs; Louie said increased FEMA reimbursement (including retroactive changes announced at the federal level) offsets some larger projected expenditures.

Commissioner Chao asked how primary-care operations were affected by redeployments. Dr. Hallie Hammer explained that primary-care services were scaled back during the most intense COVID response to redeploy clinical staff to testing and vaccination work and that many services shifted to telehealth; she estimated in-person primary-care provider visits had returned to approximately 70% (and closer to 90% for one-on-one primary-care visits) of previous levels while ancillary services remain reduced.

The commission had no public comment and voted on the consent calendar and other procedural items later in the meeting.