With a long history of providing nephrologists and dialysis centers the methods and means to offer superior care to patients with chronic kidney disease in New York, Atlantic Dialysis Management Services (ADMS) ensures that patients are cared for by a staff that is qualified and sensitive to their needs and by a company that has achieved respect and recognition.
Atlantic Dialysis Management Services was established to provide new dialysis site development and day-to-day administration and management of services for a group of dialysis facilities treating those with chronic kidney disease. As opposed to other dialysis facilities that are operated by public companies, ADMS is an independent, physician-owned company. Central to the ADMS strategy is maximizing individual site results through consolidated activities. Skilled nephrologists with the highest caliber of training and education administer the long-term control of these clinical services.
The scope of ADMS extends throughout the boroughs of New York City and Nassau and Suffolk Counties of Long Island. Affiliate dialysis centers of ADMS will provide more than 200,000 treatments in 2009 to over 1,500 patients in New York City and Long Island. Each chronic dialysis center contracts with ADMS for administrative and operational support activities. ADMS handles the recruiting of dialysis center staff, ongoing staff education, performance improvement, billing and collection, joint purchasing, joint managed care contracting and developing common operating procedures and systems across all sites. The financial, accounting and corporate functions for each site are also carried out by ADMS. In addition, ADMS provides practice management services to nephrologists and acute dialysis services to hospitals.
The free standing dialysis centers under the ADMS umbrella include Ridgewood Dialysis Center, one of the largest dialysis centers in the country with 43 stations; Newtown Dialysis Center in Long Island City with 24 stations; College Point Dialysis Center in northern Queens with 24 stations; West Nassau Dialysis Center in Valley Stream with 24 stations; New Hyde Park Dialysis Center in northwestern Nassau County with 24 stations; Central Brooklyn Dialysis Center in northeastern Brooklyn with 30 stations; Astoria Dialysis Center in the heart of Astoria’s entertainment district with 24 stations; Broadway Dialysis Center with 20 stations in licensed space at Elmhurst Hospital Center; East End Dialysis Center in Riverhead in Suffolk County with 24 stations; New York Renal Associates Dialysis Center in the south Bronx with 40 stations; and the newly opened and operating Springfield Dialysis Center in southeastern Queens with 24 stations.
In addition to the free-standing centers mentioned above, ADMS provides acute dialysis services to several hospitals through management contracts with its affiliated companies. These services are currently provided to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens and Peconic Bay Medical Center. For 2009, it is estimated that ADMS will do over 7,000 treatments in these sites. Home programs are also offered for treatment through Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) and Continuous Cycled Peritoneal Dialysis (CCPD). At the Ridgewood Dialysis Center, home hemodialysis training is offered using NxStage machines.
The ADMS business model is aimed at achieving good clinical outcomes, but never at the expense of patients’ comfort during the treatment process. For this reason, each facility is designed to provide a sense of comfort for those being treated. Elements provided by ADMS facilities that are often not found at other dialysis centers include state-of-the-art flat-screen televisions with Direct TV programming, soft lighting, beautiful fish tanks and wireless internet access.
“These are amenities that provide tremendous comfort to patients undergoing a complex and lengthy dialysis treatment,” said David Scott, MD, of the Springfield Dialysis Center. “I have worked in a number of dialysis facilities, but I have never seen the level of professionalism and patient care that Atlantic Dialysis provides in all of their facilities.”
The Springfield Dialysis Center in Springfield Gardens, of which Scott is the main nephrologist and Associate Medical Director, opened this past August and is the newest edition to the ADMS network. Scott has practiced nephrology in southeastern Queens for the past 15 years. He was trained in Nephrology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Harlem Hospital before starting a Hypertension Clinic at Mary Immaculate, eventually becoming the Director of Nephrology. For several years during that time, Scott was also the medical director of a local dialysis facility in Queens.
Scott said he formed a goal several years ago to open a comprehensive diagnostic and treatment center for chronic kidney disease that would research and evaluate new therapies to slow the progression of kidney disease and provide dialysis services for those patients with advanced chronic kidney disease. “This vision is now realized with the opening of the Springfield Dialysis Center,” Scott said. “For the first time we will have a center in our community that can provide a comprehensive approach to kidney care.”
Scott, who also recently founded Clinical Research Development Associates to perform clinical research within groups that are typically under-represented in clinical trials, said that the most unique feature of Springfield Dialysis Center is that it offers a very comprehensive approach to the care of patients with kidney diseases.
“Patients may participate in research that introduces them to new therapies in the treatment of kidney disease and it offers excellent, comprehensive dialysis services for those patients who have progressed,” he explained. Some of these services include in-center hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and home hemodialysis. In addition, Springfield Dialysis Center has an experienced full-time nephrologist on the premises at all times.
In addition to the newly-opened Springfield Dialysis Center, ADMS is a rapidly growing for-profit dialysis management company with 10 sites, making it the third largest in New York State. The first ADMS dialysis center was established in 1991 in the Ridgewood section of Queens County. It has since established its other facilities in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Nassau and Suffolk Counties. One of the largest employers in Queens County, ADMS currently has over 300 employees.
The expansion of ADMS is particularly notable given the competitive market in which it has grown. The past 18 years have seen an extraordinarily competitive New York market with the expansion and consolidation of several major national chains. The construction of new dialysis centers in the New York metropolitan area, upstate New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in the future will see to the company’s continued expansion.
A true testament to the quality health care and business practices of ADMS, the company is often consulted by hospitals, other health care entities and the New York State Department of Health on matters related to chronic kidney diseases and end stage renal disease. ADMS and its affiliates have been considered one of New York State’s best choices for dialysis and it has maintained its image by developing patient-friendly facilities with employees dedicated to excellent care.
Co-principals of ADMS, Dr. J.G. Bhat, MD, and Dr. Nirmal K. Mattoo, MD, founded the company after years of operating their private practice, Mattoo and Bhat Medical Associates, PC, one of the largest group practices in New York City devoted exclusively to nephrology. Bhat has practiced Nephrology for more than 30 years and holds medical and post-graduate degrees from Mysore Medical College and Kasturba Medical College in India. He has completed a fellowship in Nephrology at New York University as well as a post-doctoral fellowship with New York State Kidney Disease Institute. Bhat, a diplomat of the American Boards of Internal Medicine and Nephrology, has been principal investigator and co-investigator on several research projects and has published many papers on the immunologic aspects of kidney diseases.
Born and educated in India, Mattoo received his MD degree from the University of Delhi. He completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and did his fellowship in nephrology at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens. Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and Nephrology, Mattoo joined the medical staff of Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn where he served as Medical Director, Chief of Nephrology and President of the Medical Staff before becoming an acting Chief Executive Officer of the Hospital. Mattoo has since been an active teacher in Wyckoff Heights Medical Center’s residency programs.
Please visit the Atlantic Dialysis Center’s website at www.atlanticdialysis.com. The site is designed to be a tool through which patients, physicians, associates and potential employees can obtain the information they need about the company. The site even boasts a comprehensive career center that shows position openings in all of the centers throughout New York City and Long Island and health news intended to help patients make smarter decisions about how and where they are treated.
For additional information, contact the Atlantic Dialysis Management Services’ corporate office, located on the mezzanine level of 385 Seneca Avenue in Ridgewood, at 718-483-7414.
