What patients and students should know about new FIU-Baptist Health teaching hospital

A new medical center to treat Alzheimer’s, hypertension and other health conditions in South Florida. Priority selection for FIU medical students seeking training at Baptist Health facilities. And millions in funding to expand research and education opportunities.

These are some of the perks listed in a new agreement between Florida International University and Baptist Health South Florida, the school’s future teaching hospital.

Baptist Health, South Florida’s largest not-for-profit healthcare system, is in the process of becoming the teaching hospital for FIU, the largest public university in South Florida. That means faculty and students from FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine will help care for patients at Baptist Health facilities. It’s similar to the partnership Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade’s public hospital network, has with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Baptist and FIU leaders say the partnership will give patients more access to medical professionals, facilities and clinical trials, including at the future FIU-Baptist outpatient medical center, set to be constructed on the university’s West Miami-Dade campus.

Besides improving patient care, leaders say the partnership will also increase research and bolster the healthcare workforce of South Florida. It will also give FIU students in the Wertheim medical school and in other FIU health programs such as nursing more research and training opportunities.

Besides creating a variety of committees to oversee different aspects of the partnership, what else is carved into the FIU-Baptist Health agreement?

The Miami Herald obtained the agreement through a public record request. Here’s what to know:

What a new medical center at FIU means for patients

A 100,000-square-foot outpatient medical center, with adjacent parking, will be built on FIU’s main West Miami-Dade campus. The center, inspired by Baptist’s Plantation facility, will offer patients a variety of services.

Those services may include cancer radiation, treatments for Alzheimer disease, and care for heart failure and hypertension, according to the agreement. The center may also offer primary care, concierge medicine, diagnostic imaging and physical therapy.

There’s no information yet on when the center will open, but the agreement gives some insight into the construction process:

▪ FIU will try to secure funding for the center and its adjacent parking facility from the state of Florida. If FIU doesn’t get any money, or only a portion of construction costs, the university and Baptist will initiate a fundraising campaign. Baptist will then pay the rest of the remaining bill, or the entire bill, if needed, up to $100 million.

▪ If FIU secures funding, it will build and hold the title to the medical center and adjacent parking facility and sublease the center and parking to Baptist. If FIU and Baptist split the construction costs, the two will have to develop a “legal structure” to credit each party for the costs. And if Baptist pays it all, the health system will build and own the center and parking facility and will enter into a ground sublease with FIU.

▪ Baptist will be responsible for buying all equipment and furniture needed to operate the center, as well as be in charge of maintaining and repairing the center. Baptist will also take over the operations of the Ambulatory Care Center, also on FIU’s campus, in the second year of the agreement.

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FIU-Baptist partnership gives students first dibs on training

FIU students will have priority over students from other medical schools for spots in required and elective clinical rotations at Baptist Health facilities. Baptist will host the undergraduate medical education rotations at no cost to FIU’s medical school.

Under the agreement:

▪ Third year FIU medical school students will have priority for elective and required clinical rotations at Baptist facilities. Once all third-year FIU students are accommodated, Baptist can offer additional spots to students from other schools.

▪ FIU medical students in their fourth year will be the only ones allowed to do rotations at participating Baptist facilities. The exception: Students participating in visiting student programs through the American Association of Medical Colleges.

▪ Only FIU students can work rotations at the Ambulatory Care Center, located on FIU’s Eighth street campus, as well as in the future Baptist-operated medical center set to be constructed on campus.

The programs and Baptist facilities

FIU and Baptist will partner on 22 residency programs, including obstetrics, gynecology and psychiatry. Juan Cendan, the dean of FIU’s medical school, previously told the Miami Herald that some residency programs could begin as early as 2025.

Baptist can receive visiting residents or fellows from accredited programs that don’t compete with FIU-Baptist residency programs. And if Baptist wants to establish a new residency program, it has to offer FIU first dibs, with exclusivity rights, before opening the opportunity to other schools.

Under the agreement, FIU students and faculty members will have opportunities to work in the following Baptist facilities:

▪ Baptist Hospital of Miami

▪ West Kendall Baptist Hospital

▪ Doctors Hospital in Coral Gables

▪ Ambulatory Care Center and the future medical center on FIU’s main campus

How long is the agreement? And what happens to existing FIU-Baptist partnerships?

The agreement, which FIU and Baptist leaders refer to as a “marriage,” is for 10 years and will automatically extend another 10 years unless Baptist or FIU gives advance notice of wanting to end the deal.

Under the agreement, Baptist and FIU can maintain their existing partnerships with other health facilities until their agreement with the other places expire. Then Baptist and FIU need to offer these partnerships, and future partnerships, to each other first, with a right to exclusivity.

Some exceptions:

▪ FIU can continue to renew its affiliations with Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, the Miami VA in the Health District, and Nicklaus Children’s Hospital near South Miami. However, if the school wants to start a new residency program, it needs to offer Baptist the option first.

▪ Baptist Health can still receive visiting residents and fellows from accredited programs that don’t compete with FIU-Baptist residency programs. However, if Baptist wants to establish a new residency program, it needs to offer FIU the partnership first.

Millions for research

Under the agreement, Baptist will give FIU’s medical school $10 million annually for research and other operating expenses. It will also reimburse the school for various costs associated with creating and operating the residency programs, including salaries to employ residents and fellows. And FIU is slated to receive even more money from Baptist in the future, including:

▪ Once Baptist Hospital of Miami is designated as a statutory teaching hospital by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, FIU’s medical school will get an additional $1.2 million per year from the hospital system.

▪ Baptist will also give FIU’s medical school an additional $1.2 million per year once the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services establishes residency caps — how many residency and fellowship positions would be partially reimbursed by the federal agency at each Baptist facility. FIU will not be eligible for the money if the residency caps established by the federal agency are “not at least equal” to 85% of the number of resident caps FIU and Baptist agreed upon. These caps vary by program.

▪ Baptist will reimburse FIU up to $4 million a year for the “actual net operating losses” of the FIU Ambulatory Care Center until the new medical center opens on FIU’s campus. Once the new medical center opens, Baptist will give FIU a percentage of the “net operating income” it receives from the clinical services provided at the center. FIU will use the money to help employ physicians who are part of the medical school’s faculty group practice.