NYC Transgender Program Offers Comprehensive, Customized Care

Joshua D. Safer, MD, FACP, endocrinologist and executive director of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System

Approximately 0.6 percent (about 1.4 million) of American adults identify as transgender, according to a report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. Like all people, transgender individuals — people who have a gender identity or expression that differs from their assigned sex at birth — need access to health care. Many transgender people also want access to care to “transition” or medically affirm their gender identity.

“The ban by Medicare on coverage for trans-specific care was reversed [in 2014]. That allowed hospitals to really think about providing care through their usual channels,” says Joshua D. Safer, MD, FACP, an endocrinologist and the executive director of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System.

In 2016, the New York City-based health system opened the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery (CTMS) to offer gender-affirming care to trans men and women. It is one of only a few programs in the country offering medical, surgical, and behavioral health care in addition to providing support services.

“Many people here have been interested in providing care and have been doing so in an ad hoc way under the radar for decades. Our president, David Reich, has really been a driver to bring it all together,” Dr. Safer says. “I was hired about a year and a half ago to envision how an academic medical center can provide a unified point of contact for patients because transgender care cuts through so many conventional departments and programs. People sometimes think of trans care in a very linear way, but that isn’t true.”

Read the full article now: Mount Sinai, Visiting Nurse Service of New York Create Niche Program to Better Serve Transgender Population

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