Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.38, it's FLX Morning Tuesday, and it's time to get healthy with UR Medicine, Finger Lakes Health, and they have such confidence in Mary Sue Dean that you are one of the few people ever to be sent here on your own to do this. Usually there's a chaperone. Good morning.
Mary Sue Dehn: They're letting me fly solo.
Paul Szmal: Wow, yeah. I don't know, I think it's because it's the day that's in it, as they say in Ireland. Yeah, it's Giving Tuesday, but before we talk about that and the foundation, I just want to start, I know we've talked about this before, but a little bit about your background and when you got into development, and has it always been in the health care field?
Mary Sue Dehn: My fundraising background has been in the health care field primarily. As you know, my background is as a journalist. That was where I really started my career.
Paul Szmal: You had the good sense to get out.
Mary Sue Dehn: I did, partly because it's not the easiest job to have young kids. That really was the reason. It's not that I didn't love the job. As you know, you get to talk to all sorts of interesting people all the time, ask all sorts of questions, but it's not the easiest job to do with little kids. For me, I was very lucky that I was able to take a step back and shift gears a little. I did start my career in public relations, so it's a little bit of a winding road. Went back to PR marketing, branding, and ended up again taking another step into the fundraising development world. Primarily in health care, I really do care deeply about access to health care, and that costs money. Particularly in rural environments and rural regions, that access is really important. It's kind of a natural, I look at it as a more natural transition from position to position in my life. Now it's become really something that I'm deeply devoted to and excited about.
Paul Szmal: So tell us a little bit about the Finger Lakes Health Foundation and how it supports all these facilities and providers we talk about each time.
Mary Sue Dehn: The Finger Lakes Health Foundation's sole reason for existence is to support the efforts of Finger Lakes Health, UR Medicine Finger Lakes Health, to bring quality care to our patients. I mean, that's the bottom line, to support the mission of the hospital and all of its services. The hospitals and all of their services.
Paul Szmal: And health care is kind of one of the weirder sort of budget setups because you have, it's one of the few businesses that almost nobody pays when they walk in. So you're waiting for insurance reimbursements, you have some stuff that gets written off that never gets paid. So it's an odd sort of budget setup to begin with.
Mary Sue Dehn: It is. And it really, you know, the kind of care that we want to provide our patients isn't cheap. And what we get paid for doesn't necessarily, hardly ever, cover the care that we provide. So the foundation exists to try and cover that gap where we can.
Paul Szmal: So do you still hear the thing, you have all these gleaming multi-million dollar buildings, what do you need my money for?
Mary Sue Dehn: All the time. And I think, and it's a rational question, right? We all have those insurance bills. It's not like I go to the doctor and I get those four bills and I'm like, wait a minute. But the reality is that care is expensive. We want to provide the best possible care we can to our patients. And the reimbursements that we get don't cover those expenses. So the foundation, as I said, really exists to try to fill that hole. We provide a lot of care. We provide care to anyone regardless of their ability to pay, regardless of their insurance status. We'll try to help them get insurance. But at the same time, we're not denying them care.
Paul Szmal: And I think it's important not only to have this care, but to have it here in Geneva and in Waterloo and in Penny End. Because obviously when URM came in, a lot of people said, oh, what's going to happen now? And what's happened now is a partnership that's brought more strength than ever to these facilities that we talk about each two weeks.
Mary Sue Dehn: And that's correct. But I also want to say that the Finger Lakes Health Foundation, any funding, any donations that are given to the foundation are used here. While, yes, our partnership with UR Medicine has been tremendous and continues to grow access to those specialty things like our new neurosurgeon, our spine surgeon, and Dr. Okoda, you've had many of our new doctors and providers on your show. The foundation, all of the money that is raised is used specifically to support our facilities in Geneva, in Waterloo, in Penny End. I think there might be a misconception that it's like with our affiliation with the university, that it goes up to Rochester and then is just, nope, nope. It comes in here and it stays here to support the services that we offer and provide for our patients. And a lot of it, we meet the great providers, a lot of it is to give them the better tools. We talk about the new mammography coming in at Soldiers and Sailors, the improved imaging all around, and just to have the best tools for these talented providers to do what they do.
And coming, you know, in the next couple years as we sort of shift to making all of our electronic health records available on MyChart, which is what people have become used to using when they go see a UR Medicine doctor. We also want to have all of the equipment that we use, all of our diagnostic equipment, all be aligned so that the information is the same, the access to that information is the same. So all of those things, there's a lot of changing and a lot of enhancing and a lot of upgrading that's happening, again, comes at a cost. So that's why we ask for help from not just individuals, but from businesses, from other private foundations. We write a lot of grants to various government agencies and other foundations, you know, larger foundations, to ask for help. Again, it's really just to cover that gap in the kind of care that we must and do provide for our patients.
Paul Szmal: As we said earlier, today is Giving Tuesday, do you have any particular special or portal or matches or anything going on?
Mary Sue Dehn: Well, we do have, we have a post on our socials about Giving Tuesday. It is the end of the year, so it's not just about Giving Tuesday. We do send out end-of-year appeal letters to previous donors and new donors, hoping that they'll come back again and keep helping us. We just really want people to consider, as they think in this season of giving and gratitude, health care is everybody's business. It touches all of us. I think it's worth the support, right? It's worth supporting it for your family, for your neighbors, for your community. It's important that these hospitals are there to provide the care 24-7 when you need it. You know, I'm sure everybody comes in here and talks about our EDs, reality is, you're going to get seen quicker. Come to our ED in Geneva, come to our ED in Pen Yen, we'll see you, we'll make sure you get the care you need, and if we can't get it, we'll get it. You do where you do, you can get it.
Paul Szmal: I think one of the things that speaks volumes about the system is the fact that giving from employees is so high. We have had tremendous support from our employees. They really demonstrate their support for what we're doing. They know, right? And we had over, we had close to 40% of our employees give back this year in our employee campaign. It was a tremendous, that's not your average giving level of employees. I mean, we all have challenges. And we all have things that we care about outside of work, but they clearly care about the patients. They clearly care about the care that they're giving their patients, and they do give back.
Mary Sue Dehn: So let's talk about the various ways of giving. Some are very obvious, write a check. Some are not as obvious in terms of estate planning and real estate or stock or foundational giving. So talk about all the different ways people can help.
There are any number of ways. As you mentioned, you know, we talked a little bit about the end of year. I think everybody, I think at the end of the year, thinks about, okay, where do I want to spend whatever extra money I might have? Obviously you can give online, write a check, put cash in an envelope, we'll take anything in any way. The other way is to think about long-term, right? We all, at some point, you know, we might have money invested in an IRA. We might have some, and there are IRA disbursements at the end of the year that you have to take. And hopefully you're in a position where that disbursement is more than you might need. Think about giving to Finger Lakes Health with that part of that disbursement. Obviously we'd love to be part of somebody's will. We do get a lot of our long-term care families. They understand that, and they want to give back to the places that take care of their loved ones towards the end of their lives. So think about that in terms of, is there a space for the causes that you care about, which we hope Finger Lakes Health is one of them, right? To carve out something in a will or a part of an estate as you're doing your estate planning. If we're all, you know, not everybody has the ability to do that. But if you are in that position, think about that. Because again, healthcare, it's going to be a need that doesn't go away. It's eternal, right? We all, at some point in our lives...
Paul Szmal: You don't have to tell me, I'm 65 in a couple of weeks.
Mary Sue Dehn: Yeah, like, you know, for all of us who try to avoid going to the doctor, the reality is you're going to need some help. And so, you know, as part of a legacy gift, I think giving to a hospital, an organization, a healthcare organization that you care about has value.
Paul Szmal: How do you find out about charitable foundations that might be inclined to give to UR Medicine Finger Lakes Health? Is there, like, a guidebook you can open up?
Mary Sue Dehn: You mean for us to look for grants? The answer is kind of. I mean, you know, first of all, it's experience, right? But it's also, there are foundations that exist that give specifically to support community healthcare. There are more, there are some that give specifically to support rural healthcare. It's a little bit of digging, you know, it's what Google's for. But, you know, it's a combination of experience and kind of knowing where to look. And knowing who to ask. And really, my goal is to meet a donor's desire, like, this is what I care about, and find a way that they can put their funding to use in a way that makes sense to them.
We get a lot of people who donate for specific reasons, like they might donate just to Huntington Living Center because their loved one was there. They might donate to the cardiology department because they had, that's something that they care about, that they've had someone in their family with heart disease. So my job really is to find that spot where I say, hey, this is what you care about. We have a place where your money can have impact. Your donation can have impact, especially locally. You're giving to something that's at home. There are a lot of really, you know, worthy organizations that are national organizations. But the reality is you're giving something that is going to have impact in your community here.
Paul Szmal: You know, fundraising is very difficult, and it's become more and more competitive. It must be also tremendously rewarding when you get that donation, along with a letter about I remember Dr. So-and-so who helped me out 20 years ago.
Mary Sue Dehn: We get amazing letters, and Dr. Acevedo, our CEO, will read some of them at our management meetings just to remind everybody that on those hard days, that what we're doing is really important. And again, it doesn't have to be backed up by a donation. We do have a grateful patient program. But we hope that when it comes time for someone to think about where they want to put their money, that Finger Lakes Health, because it's rooted in the community, because it provides a valuable service that is going to be always needed, that they'll think about giving to the Finger Lakes Health Foundation.
Paul Szmal: Having done these interviews now for 18 years, I mean, I've met so many of these great providers. I joke because I walked into one of the facilities not long ago, and there were different pictures on the wall. I was like, I know him. I know her. I know him. I know all these people.
Mary Sue Dehn: Well, and that's because you're rooted here, right? And so is Finger Lakes Health, right? Our providers are here to give care to people here, and the money that you donate is used here.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. So today is Giving Tuesday, a great day, and then, of course, it's the end of the year, so for your estate and your tax planning purposes and things, think about your local health care system and think about keeping it here. I mean, that's one of the great things. You are Medicine Finger Lakes Health.
Mary Sue, thanks for being here. It was great. We had a great rotary conversation not too long ago. You're going to become a frequent flyer on the program here.
Mary Sue Dehn: Thanks for the invitation, Ted. I enjoy this very much.
Paul Szmal: All right. Always appreciate it. Happy Holidays.
Mary Sue Dehn: Thanks. You too.
