SOMOS clinics provide health services for Bronx community

THE BRONX, N.Y. (PIX11) – Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, Dr. Ramon Tallaj arrived in the United States in the 90s to complete a residency at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City. 

"I wanted to open a place to work in Washington Heights, which I did and since then, I started organizing the physicians," he said. 

While working at his practice, Tallaj said he realized there was a greater need to provide accessible health care to the Latino, Asian, African American and immigrant communities.

"We call it value base care based on keeping the community healthy," he said.

SOMOS Community Care, established in 2014, is a non-profit, physician-led organization of over 2,500 independent healthcare providers serving over 1 million Medicaid and Medicare patients.

"In this project, we decreased 35% emergency visits, 30% avoidable admissions, we decreased 30% dialysis in people with diabetes or 25% amputations or loss of eyesight," Tallaj said.

Somos means “we are” in Spanish. The community care has 900 medical offices in the city and Nassau County, serving 30,000 patients daily.

During the COVID pandemic, SOMOS became a greater resource for testing and getting families vaccinated, Tallaj said. SOMOS even partnered with Marvel Comics on a vaccination campaign, distributing a limited edition comic book that taught kids why it was important to get vaccinated.

"We were able to vaccinate 20,000 kids because of the book," Tallaj said.

Primary care is what SOMOS has been delivering for over a decade, but Tallaj wanted to take one step further and expand the model of care – focusing on social issues and behavioral problems. That’s why widespread patient mental health screenings are being implemented to determine depression, anxiety or suicide, he said.

Behavioral health issues, according to Tallaj, may be due to some social factors:

"Housing problem, job problem, food insecurity, transportation... that is very difficult in our community," he said.

If those issues are tackled by connecting patients to the resources needed, then patients’ conditions and lives are improved to avoid diseases, Tallaj said.

"We are carrying a new way of seeing health care is keeping people healthy," Tallaj said.

If you'd like to find out more info about SOMOS Community Care, click here.