Our Founder
Ramon Tallaj, M.D., is a board-certified internist with over 40 years of experience in the medical field. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the School of Medicine at Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Urena (UNPHU) in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Tallaj completed a residency at St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City.
He has served in various governmental positions, including the Undersecretary of Public Health and Social Services in his country, the Dominican Republic. At the request of the Archbishop of New York, John Cardinal O’Connor, Dr. Tallaj moved to the United States to provide medical care to New York’s Hispanic immigrant communities. He also established his first internal medicine practice in Washington Heights in 1997.
In 2015, he founded SOMOS Community Care (“We Are” in Spanish), a culturally competent physician-led network of 2,600 healthcare providers serving over 850,000 Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries in New York City’s immigrant communities. SOMOS was one of 25 Performing Provider Systems (PPS) in New York’s DSRIP program. Dr. Tallaj has pioneered the pay-for-performance model in New York State to improve health outcomes by enhancing preventive and chronic care management. Since 2018, Tallaj and his SOMOS network of doctors have saved New York taxpayers over 336 million dollars by reducing ER and hospital admissions by more than 35%.
His organization proved to be an even more significant community resource at the height of the COVID-19 crisis by being responsible for the operation of over 125 trilingual testing sites during the pandemic’s first wave when urban access to COVID-19 testing was nearly impossible. Dr. Tallaj led SOMOS throughout the darkest days of the pandemic.
He was responsible for testing more than 1 million people, serving over 2 million fresh-to-go meals, and he and his network of physicians vaccinated millions of New Yorkers in local churches, schools, public housing, and the Yankee Stadium.
Throughout the pandemic, SOMOS provided call centers, free health education, free PPE to hospitals, and COVID-19 protocols to immigrant communities and health workers in five languages nationwide.
Dr. Tallaj’s success during a severe medical crisis can be attributed to his determination to create a national model for equitable healthcare that places linguistic and cultural competency first in the most vulnerable immigrant communities.
On February 17, 2022, Mayor Eric Adams appointed Dr. Tallaj as Co-Chairman of the New York City COVID-19 Recovery Roundtable and Health Equity Task Force. As Co-Chairman, he advises on all the comprehensive policies focusing on healthcare access and equity to help rebuild New York City’s post-pandemic economy and long-term growth for all New Yorkers.
Dr. Tallaj’s work also includes humanitarian missions. He led recent post-hurricane recovery efforts in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona and the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria. SOMOS’ physicians and city and state officials accompanied him in these missions.
In September 2022, Dr. Tallaj and his network of doctors joined forces with the Secretary of the U.S. Health & Human Services, Xavier Becerra, in Washington Heights, to encourage vulnerable populations to get boosted and to advocate for health equity in lower-income communities.
On October 13, 2022, Dr. Ramon Tallaj received an Emmy Award from The New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Science for a documentary chronicling SOMOS Community Care’s leadership during the height of the pandemic titled “Doctor Tallaj: “The Hispanic Who Faced COVID-19 in New York.”
On November 2022, Dr. Tallaj debuted his “Family Physician Master Class,” highlighting the importance of the leadership role in Family Medicine. This course continues to promote, share, and inform of the resources that provide quality and preventive healthcare to those in need.
Dr. Tallaj and the SOMOS network of physicians have recently been on the frontlines providing immunizations and preventive treatment for asylum migrants and children in New York City.
His areas of expertise include internal medicine, health administration, PCMH implementation, disasters and emergency response, and population health & health equity.
Among his many recognitions are the 2023 City & State Healthcare Power 100, he was a 2022 Emmy Award winner, the 2021 Modern Healthcare Innovator Award, the 2020 ABC Healthcare Care Hero, 2020 Carnegie Great Immigrants Recipient. He has also received the Tribute to Excellence from United Hospital Fund; Great Immigrants, Great Americans recognized him, and as AHHE Physician Entrepreneur of the Year, as Best Doctor of the Year by Continuum Hospital, and he was honored with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
