Peconic Bay receives four-star CMS rating

Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead recently received a four-star CMS rating, a great accomplishment that puts the center in the upper echelons of care.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, based on July 2022 results, 28.67 percent of hospitals received a four-star rating. The highest rating is five stars, which Dr. Jeffrey Zilberstein, medical director at Peconic Bay, said the center is striving for.

“It’s a tremendous success for this hospital to be made a four-star hospital,” Dr. Zilberstein said. 

“The first thing I said when I saw that is, ‘It’s wonderful that we are, but we’re striving for five.’”

Dr. Zilberstein said that Peconic Bay is working on a much more concierge approach to health care.

“Hospitals 20 years ago really weren’t thinking like this,” Zilberstein said. “Hospitals were thinking, ‘take care of the sick people and send them home and best of luck.’ But what we’re really looking at is the ‘care’ part of health care and the ‘health’ part of health care. We see that the system generally is all about the sick, and we want to focus on wellness and on the person.”

Working to get that five-star CMS rating  Zilberstein said is a lot of work. The hospital has a readmissions committee that looks at every patient who was readmitted and what could have been done differently. In addition, the hospital is committed to patients even after leaving their facility.

“We are a community hospital through and through,” Zilberstein said. “We are here to serve our community, and our community are our neighbors.”

“Compassionate care is really what we’re focusing on, and then everything else actually gets better. If I’m compassionate, I’m going to provide concierge care.”