Dr. Kelt lets Winthrop Hospital handle headaches

Dr. Peter Kelt, a general practitioner on Shelter Island since 1983, is contracting with Winthrop University Hospital to take over the administration of his practice and will continue seeing patients as an employee of the Mineola facility.

The news came at Tuesday’s Town Board work session when Supervisor Jim Dougherty reported that Dr. Kelt, who has been occupying an office in the town’s Medical Center without a contract for many years, now wanted a five-year lease with the town with an option to renew for another five years.

The supervisor said Dr. Kelt had formed a company called Peter Kelt MD, PC and signed a contract on Friday with Winthrop to operate the practice in the town-owned facility.

“It’s not a sale of Peter’s practice,” Mr. Dougherty said, but Dr. Kelt “will become a salaried employee of Winthrop.” He will maintain his privileges at Eastern Long Island and Southampton hospitals, the supervisor said.

Dr. Mel B. Kaplan in Greenport has made the same arrangement with Winthrop, Mr. Dougherty said.

As Mr. Dougherty explained it, “The increasingly crushing administrative burden” of operating a practice in what the supervisor called a “dysfunctional medical world” — with all the red tape and paperwork chores imposed by the “insanely profitable” insurance companies — “will be taken over by Winthrop University Hospital.”

A call to Dr. Kelt for comment on Wednesday was not returned by press time. A call to Winthrop University Hospital for comment also was not returned.

“Another benefit for them,” Mr. Dougherty said of Dr. Kelt and his wife Jean, who helps him run the practice, “is Jean will have time for nursing,” which Mr. Diougherty said she loves.

He said the “delivery of care will be completely unaltered” at the practice but now Winthrop will handle the high volume of calls and emails, pay the bills and salaries and handle insurance claims and reimbursements. As part of the agreement, Winthrop will provide Dr. Kelt with new computers, the supervisor reported. He added that Winthrop was imposing no obligation on Dr. Kelt to make referrals to the hospital, which has a “high end” cardiology unit.

Mr. Dougherty said the town would “dust off the old lease” the town once had with Dr. Kelt, who he said has been paying $800 a month for years. The Island Urgent Medical Care’s family practice with Dr. Scot Kolsin in the same building pays $1,640 a month under the lease for its space, Mr. Dougherty said.

Dr. Kelt’s lack of a lease dates back to what Mr. Dougherty called “a misunderstanding” that he had with a previous Town Board. It dates back at least eight years. Hoping to expand his practice, Dr. Kelt planned in 2003 to bring in another doctor as a full-time partner. But he charged the Town Board mistreated his proposed partner, Dr. Brad Bissell, and with unfairly allotting two-thirds of the Medical Center’s space to Drs. Edgar Grunwaldt and Christopher Marshall, which prompted the prospective partner to abandon the deal. That space is now occupied by Dr. Kolsin as an employee of Island Urgent Medical Care.

Speaking of Dr. Bissell, Dr. Kelt commented in an interview at the time, “I’ve known this kid since he was 10 years old, I’ve treated him. For the welcome mat to be pulled out from under him is terribly unfortunate. It should have been the red carpet instead.”

Then-Supervisor Art Williams said at the time that the Town Board had asked for specific information from Dr. Kelt about his plans to bring in a partner because it was working to finalize lease agreements with Drs. Grunwaldt and Marshall. “We told him we needed to know certain information by a certain date in order to finalize the lease for the Medical Center space. We waited and waited and kept waiting and finally we had to act on the lease.”

Dr. Kelt had told the Town Board in the fall of 2001 that he would build his own office, in part to protest a rent hike from $200 to $800, which he blamed on then-Supervisor Gerry Siller.