Rebecca Rhynhart, a 1993 graduate of Abington High School and a former Philadelphia city controller, was featured by The Philadelphia Inquirer today for her efforts to help the struggling Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia.

Wills Eye was founded in 1832 and is the only remaining independent eye hospital in the United States. The nonprofit hospital “is looking to new leadership to turn around its finances after at least 10 straight years of operating losses,” The Inquirer said, noting that its leaders blame their financial struggles “on the relatively low payment rates it receives from insurers, compared with local competitors like Penn Medicine’s Scheie Eye Institute at Presbyterian Medical Center.”

Rhynhart was hired in May.

“Commercial insurers as a group are paying other area hospitals at least two to three times what Wills is getting paid for the same procedure,” she told The Inquirer.

Dan Grauman, managing director at consulting firm VMG Health, told The Inquirer that money-losing Holy Redeemer Hospital in Abington Township is the only general hospital in the region that is not part of a larger system.

Wills Eye also serves as the ophthalmology department and a teaching site for medical students and residents at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson’s Sidney Kimmel Medical College, The Inquirer said.

In September 2023, Rhynhart was named Drexel University’s new Senior Vice President for Finance, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Deputy Treasurer. She resigned from her previous post as City Controller to run for Philadelphia Mayor in October 2022. She came in second with about 23% of the vote — nearly 10 percentage points behind victor Cherelle Parker.

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Photo: Drexel.edu