PCI unhindered by pandemic headwinds, says new CEO

CEDAR RAPIDS — After managing the financial headwinds caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic over the past two years, new leadership at the Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa said the specialty group is “ahead of schedule” on future growth.

“I don’t think we’ve been hampered too much by the pandemic,” said Eric Dalton. “We’re actively recruiting tenants, we’re actively recruiting new providers and physicians to come to Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa. Basically, we took a year off and now I’d say we’re ahead of schedule.”

Dalton is the new chief executive officer of the private, multi-specialty physicians group in Cedar Rapids. He took over for Michael Sundall, who retired as CEO on Dec. 31 after 13 years at PCI.

Dalton has held several roles at the medical group since he joined in October 2006, including his most recent position as chief administrative and financial officer.

He also took over the top leadership role in the midst of the latest coronavirus surge in Iowa, which pushed COVID-19 case counts to record highs that inundated health care systems across the state.

While some departments saw little impact from the pandemic — such as oncology or rheumatology — some specialties reported a major decline in patient volumes. Dalton said some specialties saw patient volumes drop up to 50 percent of normal volumes at the height of COVID-19 in 2020.

“Obviously, that impacted us financially,” Dalton said.

To address major declines in patient volumes throughout the pandemic, PCI officials reduced staffing levels by about 50 percent by cutting hours for a couple of months, Dalton said.

As the virus upended normal operations for the industry, health care businesses like PCI have had to shelve any plans for growth.

A month before the coronavirus first arrived in Iowa in March 2020, PCI had just opened Medical Pavilion II, a three-story, 100,000-square-foot medical building located across the street from the original PCI Medical Pavilion on 10th Street SE in Cedar Rapids.

The building was proposed as an expansion of current services and would house new tenants, such as the Eastern Iowa Sleep Center, as part of a “medical mall” concept. Officials estimated between 600 and 800 patients would visit the new building daily.

But into 2022, PCI is not quite back to business as usual pre-pandemic, but they are “pretty close,” Dalton said. Medical Pavilion II added two new tenants in early 2021 and officials hosted a grand reopening in the hopes of attracting more potential businesses.

“We're probably ahead of schedule in terms of growing in that facility,” he said.

By the end of 2020 and into 2021, providers saw “a significant uptick” in patient volumes and activity as a result of a pent-up demand for elective, non-emergent surgical procedures. These surgeries were delayed by Eastern Iowa hospitals during the winter 2020 surge in order to preserve staff capacity and resources to address COVID-19.

Dalton noted it may not be an apples-to-apples comparison, because of permanent social distancing policies in the waiting room and the retirement of certain providers in the past two years.

Staffing challenges

In addition, PCI still is seeing an impact on the number of procedures it can perform even in recent weeks because of staffing challenges. As a specialty group, PCI surgeons rely on the Cedar Rapids hospitals and local surgery centers to perform operations for patients, but those facilities are struggling to find employees for its operating rooms.

“The volumes are different, but we're pretty darn close to being back where we were again,” he said.

PCI is not exempt from the staffing challenges. it has ramped up recruitment and retention efforts in an effort to fill open positions.

But the challenge is not just on the clinical side, but also among the clerical departments. Dalton said they have had to compete with employers nationwide that allow their employees to work from home permanently.

“The vast majority of our staff were not able to do that because we're here to take care of patients, so that becomes maybe a secondary competing factor,” he said.

But despite staffing challenges and the lingering financial impact of the pandemic, Dalton and other PCI leaders are hoping to expand and innovate services. In particular, providers are hoping to expand the number of procedures it does in-office, rather than in an operating room.

Dalton said PCI will continue to remain centrally located within the Medical Quarter district of Cedar Rapids, but leaders are “always looking at strategic expansion considerations.” But in the meantime, Dalton said he plans to continue working to keep PCI financially strong.

“Another goal, which is pretty simplistic, but we’ve got to continue to meet our financial targets,” Dalton said. “Mike (Sundall) liked to say ‘no money, no mission.’ We’re always going to be here to take care of patients, but health care is a business too and we have to manage that.”

Comments: (319) 398-8469; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com